Sky Above, Voice Within
by Arty Thrip - Alpha 04
Summary: Skyrim is in turmoil. Dragons have returned and the woman whom destiny has chosen to save them is worse than useless. Between the ceaseless Civil War fighting, a band of assassins known only as the Green Arrows have formed and seem to be targeting those who do not worship Talos. All Skyrim really needs is a miracle.
1. Yol

_Chapter One - Fire_

Skyrim was the last place in all of Tamriel that Élusia wanted to find herself. Particularly in the back of an Imperial wagon with fetters on her wrists and stripped of her worldly possessions.

She had been travelling from High Rock to the Imperial Province in order to attend the Arcane University. Or that was what she told herself. Right now Élusia wished she had never set foot in this Divines-forsaken frozen wasteland of a province.

The road from Jehanna had been a difficult one to travel, and at this time of year it was covered with a thick layer of ice that the wagon driver had outright refused to travel down, sending the Breton woman trailing through the Nord homeland, by boat to Solitude and then by road to Falkreath.

"You picked the wrong time to visit Skyrim, my friend," a man in the cart told her. He was fettered too, a Nord with more scars than she had fingers and hair that was matted with blood.

"I'll say," Élusia muttered acidly, looking around the cart. She had been warned by her family not to travel into Skyrim during the Civil War. _'It's too dangerous,' _they had told her, and she had assured them that there were no issues at all. I'm not a Nord, she reminded them, their quarrel does not concern me.

Though apparently it did.

The Breton woman had walked herself into a battle, of course. And now she was on her way to be executed, she just knew it. The Stormcloak soldiers had picked the exact day that she was passing through town to mount an assault upon it, even picked the exact hour, the exact road she was travelling down.

"I didn't do anything! I don't deserve to die!" one of the men whined. "I'm not a Stormcloak!"

"You and me both," snapped the Breton. All she had done was cast a ward spell and suddenly one would have thought that she was the most wanted woman in all of Skyrim. Or that was what the Imperial Legion had made it feel like. Nords don't trust mages. She had found that out the hard way. "Try and die with some honour."

At the far end of the wagon, a man in official looking clothing chuckled. Élusia supposed he would have said something if not for the gag across his mouth. The man beside her didn't look like a Stormcloak, though she guessed he had to be if he was caught up in all this – though he could have just been in the wrong place and the wrong time like her. He looked like a Redguard, but his skin was too pale to be sure and he kept his head down and his mouth shut for the entire journey.

The solitary woman looked around. _I suppose I should take in the scenery before I die_, her mind interjected unhelpfully and she almost swore at herself before the soldier driving the cart snapped at the prisoners to keep quiet.

It looked as though they were in a convoy of wagons, or at least there were more than one, with mounted Imperial soldiers riding alongside to keep the prisoners in check, their armour chinking as the horses moved slowly. The air was cold but clean, fresher than she was used to, and her lungs ached from the sudden change in temperature.

"W-Where are they taking us?" stammered the whiner, struggling against his bonds to the extent that an Imperial soldier gave him a crack around the head with the pommel of his sword and left the man with blood trickling from the wound, groggy but conscious.

The scarred man answered, unafraid in the face of this brutality. He almost looked as though he was smiling, though Élusia was distracted staring at the life's blood oozing from the other man's head. _I could fix that... All it would take is one spell..._ "To Helgen, by the looks of this road, lad... And then to Sovngarde."

A spreading dark stain on the other man's trousers showed that he had pissed himself with fear. The Breton rolled her eyes at that. She had always thought that Nords had more honour, or even wanted to go to their Sovngarde where they could eat and drink their afterlives away with no issue. Personally Élusia favoured the idea of Aetherius, but since she was not a Nord there was really no problem with that in her mind.

"I'm not a Stormcloak!" the man said, his eyes wide with fear as he pleaded with the nearest Imperial. "You can't do this! All I did was steal one horse! Take me to prison!" A gob of saliva hit him square in the face and one of the soldiers laughed as it slid unceremoniously down his cheek and into his lap to mix with the stream of tears in his eyes.

"Where are you from, lad?" asked the scarred man gently. Élusia couldn't help but notice that the possible Redguard sitting beside her shifted uncomfortably as he spoke the words. Thus far he had been completely still, completely silent, and so the reaction took her off guard and she frowned heavily. "Think of home when the time comes. Sovngarde is far better than this awful place, I'll tell you that!" he laughed heartily as the whimpering man muttered something about Rorikstead. "And you, lass," he grinned. "I'm sure a pretty thing like you doesn't deserve your head rolling across the floor. You may not be a Nord, but take some comfort in home."

"Don't waste your breath," she told him flatly. "You Stormcloaks are the reason I'm in this mess, and if you truly believe that I wish to speak with you about it, you are tragically mistaken." She turned away and looked at the mountains in the distance, grey giants coated with white snow, green trees, blue sky... She had never spent much time around nature as a child and yet suddenly she yearned for it as her life came to a close. Looking forward along the procession of wagons, Élusia could see the dark wooden gates of the town of Helgen looming, civilians in the streets pausing in their everyday lives to gape at the prisoners being hauled inside by the Imperials; she hoped that they got the show that they were after.

One of the soldiers from the town approached an Imperial man in a red tunic and golden armour as they entered the city. The man was old but looked important and it was obvious that he was not beyond wielding a sword himself when it came down to getting the job done. "General Tullius, sir," the soldier said, snapping to attention in front of him. "The headsman is ready, sir."

"Good," replied the man presumably called General Tullius. "Let's get this over with." His voice was flat and almost disinterested, and he turned back to the High Elven woman he had been speaking with as the soldier saluted smartly and turned on his heels to leave.

Élusia rolled her eyes as she heard the horse thief praying to every god he could remember the name of.

"Look at him, General Tullius, chatting to those damn Thalmor. I bet they had something to do with this," the scarred Nord opposite her growled under his breath, spitting over the side of the carriage as though the words left a bitter taste in his mouth.

The cart shuddered to an uneasy stop in a courtyard beneath a large tower, and the Breton was almost sure that the whining man had wet himself again as he panicked over why they were stopped. "Why do you think we're stopping, genius?" she snapped at him irritably. People like him made her wish she had died already.

"But... But we're not rebels!" he insisted again as the soldiers ordered them to descend from the cart. The man shook as he found his feet and almost collapsed in fear as he dropped the short distance to the dusty ground.

"Face your death with some courage, thief," said the Nord, his voice soft as his muttered straight into the man's ear. "The gods take all of our souls eventually."

"But this is a mistake! You can't let them kill me!" His voice was growing louder and drawing attention.

An Imperial captain stepped out. A woman in heavy armour and a helmet with a plume with a sword on her hip and, no doubt, a dagger somewhere on her person should the need arise, she cut quite a strange figure. Élusia supposed that the woman must have been among the best to rise through the ranks of the Legion; the Nords didn't seem to mind following female leadership, but the Imperials had a tendency to cause a fuss about it. Though these days such things were becoming less and less of an issue. "When your name is called, step forward," she told the prisoners succinctly, her hand straying to her sword hilt. "Try anything stupid and you will be killed. You will not be missed, you rebel scum."

"But I'm not a rebel!"

"Silence!" she shouted. "Say another word and I'll take put my sword through your throat to shut your filthy mouth." The way she spoke through gritted teeth showed she was serious, and there was a glint in her eyes that Élusia knew meant that she had ended more than one life before... And enjoyed it. It was hard to tell if she had joined the Legion because she believed in their cause or because she loved the idea of bloodshed. The captain gestured calmly to a Nord soldier beside her to begin calling names.

There were all sorts among the prisoners. Old, young, man, woman. They were all Nords save for Élusia and the man who might be a Redguard, and every one towered over her head like a group of giants as she stood between them. She suspected that aside from the whiner who was so obviously 'not a rebel', the rest were all Stormcloaks caught in the rebellion; at least they had enough pride and honour to maintain a sense of dignity as they went to their inevitable death. When their names were spoken they moved towards the block with an air of dignity, knowing their heads would roll but far from afraid of the outcome.

"Ulfric Stormcloak," the man called loudly in the midst of it all, creating a din. The gagged man moved with such a grace that Élusia was surprised she had not realised who he was. People who were not Stormcloaks hurled abuse at the man while the men and women who served him bowed their heads in reverence. The Breton did not know his crime, but she knew that he had started the war that was going to cost her her head, and the thought of that alone was enough to make her blood boil with anger towards him.

"Lokir of Rorikstead." The frightened man stiffened, frantically shouting about how he wasn't a rebel and how they couldn't kill him like this, how he didn't deserve it. He shoved Élusia to the ground and ran, his feet only in wraps as they galloped over the pavement. _You're not going to kill me_ were the sentiments he would die with, she supposed. From her position on the ground, the Breton could not see a vast amount of what occurred, but she heard the man calling names shout "Archers ready!", and the twang of a bowstring followed by a gurgle of pain and the respectful silence that only comes when a man is brought to a sudden death with a group of witnesses.

"You, on the ground. What is your name?"

A man standing in front of Élusia moved aside when they realised that it was her who was being called. Scrambling to her feet was a far from graceful affair as her hands were bound and nobody dared make a move to help her up. "My name is Élusia Gaerwood," she told them, making a feeble attempt to wipe some of the dust from her legs and the filthy outfit they had forced her into when they took her possessions.

The Nord soldier scanned his list. "I don't see you on here. Where did you come from?"

"The town of Jehanna in High Rock."

He muttered something to the female captain, who scoffed something and then said: "Move over with the others, scum." She spat on the ground in their direction to make their point. "Even if you are unlucky enough to be in Skyrim at this time, at least we won't have to worry about you joining up with these Stormcloak bastards."

_Not that I would even consider it,_ Élusia thought in reply to her.

"And you, Redguard!"

Having kept an eerie silence until now, Élusia half expected the man to say nothing, but instead he raised his gaze to look the Imperial captain dead in the eye. "My name is Jonna," he said with deliberate slowness. His voice was thick as tar and laced with enough hatred to fall an army. "The people of Hammerfell call me Imperial's Bane, and were I not bound, you would not be living." He moved across the courtyard without a further word and took his place beside Élusia, his dark eyes turned to the ground once more. Even if he were not a Stormcloak, the Breton was fairly sure that he was arrested for the same crime as them.

When the name-calling was over, the Imperial captain and the man who had been calling names advanced to beside the block. "You," the woman shouted, pointing at the nearest Stormcloak without ceremony. To his credit, at least the Nord soldier who had chosen to side with the Imperials looked upset, unlike the other people around here who seemed to be enjoying the show. Women from Helgen were leaning over balconies while men leant with their backs against walls, content to watch these people die. There were children too, though only a select few that had not been moved inside by their parents to spare them from this moment.

"You will never keep down the _true_ sons and daughters of Skyrim!" the condemned man called, garnering a response from every Stormcloak soldier in the area who called their allegiance to the bound and gagged Ulfric. The Imperial woman kicked him sharply in the back of his legs so that his knees buckled and he fell to the ground over the wooden block. A headsman stood nearby, honing his axe to a deadly edge with a whetstone; he wore a hood and was dressed in black mail and dark fur, presumably so the blood would not stain him.

The woman put her foot square into the back of the Stormcloak soldier and forced his head down onto the block, where he kept it with dignity as the headsman advanced. "I go now to feast in the halls of Sovngarde!" he called, and his comrades shouted their agreement once more. The axe was raised and fell some quickly that Élusia could have sworn it jumped from its high position to its low position, whistling through the otherwise still air. She almost felt ill as she watched the Nord's head fall into the basket waiting to catch it in a shower of blood; his trunk continued to ooze red as the captain kicked it aside and called the next victim, though the spreading pool of crimson was rather too distracting for the Breton to realise who had been ordered to die next.

Her heart skipped a beat when she looked up and saw the woman's finger pointed firmly in her direction, until she heard the words "The Redguard!" and allowed herself to breathe again. It made sense that someone with such open opposition to Imperial rule would be killed so early on, while Ulfric Stormcloak would be saved until last, likely so that General Tullius could say a few demoralising words, or even land the fatal blow himself.

Jonna stepped forward with an air of stoicism. "Kill me, bitch," he growled and spat directly into the captain's face. She swore and drew her sword in a flash, but the Nord soldier grabbed her swordarm to stop her from running him through as Jonna sank to his knees willingly with a look of smug satisfaction on his usually so emotionless face. Looking around, Élusia saw that the Stormcloaks had also adopted satisfied expressions at the sight of this outburst.

"We will see that your remains are sent back to Hammerfell," the soldier who had called the names muttered as he gave the woman leave to sheathe her blade.

A deep rumbling shook the whole town so suddenly that the Breton wondered for a moment what it was until the Imperial captain ordered them to carry on. Black shadows coalesced and Élusia watched in horror as they swooped right over her head as Jonna put his head on the block. She searched the skies frantically but saw nothing, and then looked around to see almost all the onlookers and prisoners doing the same, save for the captain and her headsman. Even General Tullius, who had stayed a good distance back with the High Elf companion of his, seemed at least slightly alarmed as the shadows passed over a second time. The mage could have sworn she saw a glimpse of a tail as black as night in the corner of her field of vision – though when she looked it had gone.

"Carry on!" the captain barked. The executioner raised his axe obediently as the top portion of the tower behind him seemed to explode into bricks and dust, knocking him sideways as the ground quaked.

Élusia too fell to the ground and when she looked at what had once been the upper section of the uniform grey structure, she found herself face to face with the spiked visage of evil, black scales and razor sharp teeth glinted at her in the light and she was frozen in terror as around her men and women began to run in horror.

_**Yol**_, she heard and a column of flame exploded from the creature's mouth. A dragon. The Breton had a ward spell covering herself before she could even comprehend the words to cast one, and it was all that saved her from the fire as it ripped to her left and to her right, devouring the people who had not moved in time with savage hunger.

"Get up!" the scarred Nord was shouting at her and the Redguard on the block, who seemed to have escaped surprisingly unscathed. The headsman who had been standing beside her was still burning, a charred hunk of flesh that seemed to have melted away, oozing something. Élusia scrambled to her feet and stumbled towards a tower, finding her way inside only a few moments before another burst of heat washed behind her, destroying the door and making the stones hot to the touch.

Inside wounded men and women lay cowering in pain, bloodstains around them. Some had been burnt so severely that they were unrecognisable as living creatures. The dragons screams overhead made the whole building shake and threaten to collapse on top of them. Behind her, the Redguard man who had been on the block sprinted inside.

"We need to move," said a new voice. Ulfric Stormcloak was no longer gagged but remained bound, his regal clothing in tatters. "Ralof, get to the roof. See if we can't down this thing with arrows." The scarred man nodded. "You, girl," the leader of the rebellion continued. "I saw that magic you used to survive the dragon flame. Whether you like my cause or not, accompany Ralof to the roof if you wish to live. And you, Redguard, follow them too. If you would be as lethal to the Imperials as you claim, you are a man I wish to have on my side."

Élusia ran mindlessly up the stairs with the two men as the wall beside her shattered and the face of the dragon appeared, snapping at her. She almost fell from the spiralling staircase until Jonna grabbed her and forced her back into the wall. "The roof is no longer an option," he growled at her over the din of people screaming and dying, flames burning and the dragon calling upon its evil magic. He looked through the hole in the wall. "Jump, girl," he said barely a second before he threw her through the gap.

She shrieked with terror and her mind raced in a million different directions in the brief milliseconds she was in the air. _He is trying to kill me. Stupid Redguard knows I hate the Stormcloaks and wants to kill me before I join the Imperial Legion. Why did I ever come to Skyrim? If not death by beheading then death by dragon-_. Her feet hit the roof of a nearby building, which shattered under her weight. It had been weakened, obviously by the dragon landing on it as it made the hole in the tower. She fell through, sprawling on her hands and knees on the top floor of the building which was in ruins but not burning.

Pain spiked through Élusia's knees as she forced herself to her feet. She span around in time to see the Redguard and the scarred Nord man called Ralof land behind her, the floor of the building creaking and threatening to give out. "Keep moving, girl," Jonna told her. And she ran through the agony until she noticed that the stairs of the building had collapsed, forcing her to jump through a hole in the floor that exploded into a shower of splintered under the strain of holding up her weight. Her entire lower body screamed as she hit the ground below, cuts covering her entire body from where the savage pieces of wood had torn at her skin.

The dragon's shadow appeared over her head again, and she was afraid that it would land on the building she was in and crush her to death, though it continued to swoop past and set fire to the few homes she could see. Jonna picked her up and carried her through the door out into the streets of Helgen where she saw a wounded man being carried by his son until the Nord Imperial soldier from earlier grab the boy and drag him away moments before the dragon landed and doused his father in flames. The boy screeched, tears streaming from his eyes as he watched his parent's body all but melt away under the intensity of the heat. "Take care of him," the soldier said to a nearby Nord, pressing the boy's hands into those of the man he had enlisted.

"We need to get these bindings off," Ralof shouted to them, crouching in a slightly sheltered corner between a stone wall and a wooden building that seemed to be largely in one piece. Jonna crouched with him, dropping Élusia to the ground in front of them. "Our best way out is through Helgen Keep," the Nord suggested. "It leads out of a cave on the road to Riverwood. My sister lives there and we can get help from Whiterun to fortify the town."

"How does one fortify against a _dragon_?!" Élusia demanded, half paralysed with fear.

Ralof shot her a grin. "You clearly don't know how unlikely it is for a Nord to go down without a fight. The horse thief back there is an exception, not a rule. We Nords will fight for our homes until our lives are forfeit. I know Riverwood, and I know that the people there would stand firm until their dying breaths." The ground beneath their feet rumbled again as the huge dragon landed and spewed flames towards the keep that Ralof had indicated. "Do you know any spells that would get these off, lass?" He frowned when she shook her head and explained that focussing any sort of magic that much would probably be more deadly than fighting a dragon with your bare hands. "Hadvar!" he snapped sharply, causing the Nord Imperial soldier to spin around to face them.

The man approached quickly. "I'm surprised you're still alive, prisoners," he grumbled, on his toes and looking around.

"Hadvar, cut these bindings," Ralof appealed. "You were in Riverwood with me when we were kids. Does that mean nothing to you?"

He scowled. "Why did you have to take up with the damn Stormcloaks, Ralof?!" he demanded, obviously considering it and fighting with himself. "Damnit, man! I didn't want to watch you die on the block, but you're a damn traitor!"

"Fighting for my homeland is not treason."

"Ulfric _murdered_ High King Torygg!"

"In fair and honourable combat... Hadvar, please..." The two men stared at each other for a moment. "There is no way we're getting out of here like this. What man deserves to be burnt alive by dragon's breath?"

Without warning, Hadvar put his fist into the wall in frustration, the weakened wood and stone crumbling to leave behind a hole. "Ralof, I can't!"

The scarred Nord stood and bowed his head. "Well be sure to tell my sister I died fighting then, even with my hands bound." He growled something unintelligible before reaching down and pulling Élusia to her feet, Jonna standing without encouragement. "You were like a brother to me once..."

"Damn you, Ralof," Hadvar grimaced. There was a dagger in his hand that Élusia had not seen him draw. He dropped it on the ground before unsheathing his sword. "Make sure you escape now or this will all have been for nothing." He took off at a run, dashing across the open courtyard before dropping into a crouch next to the opposite building and slipping around the corner out of sight.

Ralof stooped and took up the small blade before slicing through the bindings on Élusia's wrists followed by those on Jonna's. He then handed the Redguard the dagger and allowed his own to be cut.

"Helgen Keep is a bad idea," the Breton told them. She pointed to where the flags that had been on the building were burning and the bricks appeared red hot.

The Stormcloak man grunted in frustration. "Well Hadvar had the right of it... Get across this road, lass. From there we'll find our way out."

Above, the dragon swooped over the small and defenceless town again, roaring in its horrible language while the people below suffered its wrath. The three prisoners dashed across at the first opportunity they saw, their feet pounding on the paved streets that were still hot to the touch, past unidentifiable corpses. They slipped between the wall and the buildings just as the dragon's huge head appeared where they had been moments earlier, too large to turn and send a stream of fire onto them it hauled its massive bulk up over the wall and scorched the courtyard behind it, the screeches of men boiling in their armour unable to ignore. When the beast took off into the sky again, its tail flicked through the building they had taken shelter behind and sent a deluge of debris slumping onto their heads. Élusia felt a lump of wood strike her on the head and pin her to the ground before she had a chance to react, sending the world around her into darkness.

* * *

When Élusia came to, she saw Jonna standing over her and felt her head thumping. "The dragon is gone," he told her. There was blood gushing from a badly bandaged cut on his arm and the shirt he had been given by the Imperials was torn along with the flesh beneath it. "We must escape from this place before it returns to claim any more victims."

Climbing to her feet, the Breton felt her knees give out from beneath her and she tasted the ground once again. Looking at her legs, she saw that they were crimson and one looked oddly misshapen as though she had broken it, causing her eyes to widen in shock. "I can't..." she told the Redguard. She knew a spell to fix it, but her head was such a jumble that she could not remember the incantation. "Ralof?"

"Helgen Keep," he said gravely. The man picked her up as easily as carrying a child, barely even wincing as the movement brought a fresh gush of blood from his arm. "The dragon landed there, but I suspect some people have survived..."

"Why didn't you leave with him?"

"Why did the dragon not kill me when my head lay upon the block? Some things cannot be explained, girl." When he stepped out into the street, Élusia saw nothing but burning buildings and smoke; in the air she tasted ashes and burnt flesh, enough to make her choke and want to vomit. Jonna crossed the road to where the dragon had caused the entire top floor of a house to fall in on itself and catch fire. The wood was nothing but charcoal now, but in some places still looked red as fire clung to life inside of it, the struts that had held up the ceiling how at a peculiar angle on the floor, surrounded by the remains of old furniture. The Redguard put Élusia on the ground outside and slipped in, sidling around some of the timbers.

"Don't just leave me here!" she shouted after him, her legs stabbing into her senses with daggers of pain. "What if the dragon comes back?!" He had left her in the open and she knew that she would be the first thing that the dragon would attack if it saw her; a ward might have saved her last time, but if it picked her up in its mighty jaws then there was no way that she could survive.

Jonna's face reappeared around the empty door frame. "Don't be an idiot, girl," he muttered, leaving again.

"You bastard!" she yelled at him, struggling to her feet with a good deal of pain.

This time when he returned there was an incredulous expression in his features. "Girl, if you shout like that half of Skyrim will hear you, let alone one dragon."

"Well don't leave me!"

He gave her a withering look and leant against the only wooden wall of the house that seemed to have survived most of the damage. "Who said I was leaving you, girl?" Rolling his eyes, Jonna vanished behind it again. "And sit down before you fall down," his voice instructed her from the other side of the wall.

Stubbornly Élusia attempted to remain on her feet until he legs gave out beneath her again and she hit the ground hard.

"I would hate to have to tell you that I told you so." Jonna's voice was almost bemused, which was about as emotional as she had heard him sound in the short time she'd known him. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment. "But I think you've learnt your lesson without the additional punishment." The sound of timbers being moved reached her ears, followed by grunts of exertion from the man inside and a noise that sounded somewhat like a foot colliding with weakened wood. "What did you tell them your name was, girl?"

The woman growled. "Élusia Gaerwood. And yours?"

"My name is Jonna, after the General who brought reinforcements to Titus II after the Sack of the Imperial City. While the Emperor bravely ran away..." he scoffed and returned to Élusia's line of sight.

"Sounds like a woman's name..."

"And I'm not surprised yours wasn't on the prisoner register... I doubt the guards could spell it."

"For your information, Élusia means 'chosen' in the language of High Rock."

The Redguard chuckled. "And what were you chosen to do, girl? Die in a dragon attack in a country that isn't your home? Tell me, girl, how were you planning on getting out of Helgen on your own? Maybe you should have _chosen_ to burn alive. If you had _chosen_ to jump out of that tower of your own accord, do you think we'd be alive now?" He raised an eyebrow at her. "Come along, girl. I have cleared a path." Jonna stepped towards her and took her into his arms. "I need you to hold on so that I can balance. The path is hardly smooth."

Élusia did as she was told begrudgingly. _Stupid Redguard thinks he can mock my name..._ He slipped around the fortifications with her and she saw what he had been doing: he had moved some of the smaller pieces of wood to one side and kicked a hole through the weakest part of the wall of the house, big enough for a person to slip through. With a little bit of clambering and very nearly knocking the Breton out against a singed beam, the pair managed to free themselves from the debris and find the road that led south.

"That Nord said to go to Riverwood..." the female pointed out, still clinging to him as though he would drop her despite the fact that he was holding her himself now. "It should be in this direction... I think."

Jonna rolled his eyes. "The dragon flew off in this direction," he pointed out.

"Yes, but a town means that we can get help," she said, blinking at him. "And at the very least, something for my legs..." She looked down at them and winced, noting the blood staining the trousers she was wearing; whenever she stood on them she felt sharp pain stabbing into her senses, which led her to believe that at least one was broken. The Breton was still too stubborn to admit that to the man who had rescued her, though, even if he was the person who caused it by throwing her from the tower in the first place.

"Can't you Bretons do magic on that sort of thing?"

Élusia sighed. "Originally I thought that I had just forgotten a spell that I could use to fix them. Now I'm fairly sure I never knew one. I was travelling to the Imperial Province to _learn_ magic; that which I know already is hardly sufficient. With some alchemy equipment and some ingredients I suppose I could make a potion to ease the pain a little – though even my alchemical skills leave a lot to be desired – but with these current conditions I'm afraid it's quite impossible." She wished she could, though. Being carried around with bloodied legs by a man who seemed to be almost twice her size while dressed in rags was not exactly the most dignified position for a woman to find herself in, not to mention that certain cruder people might find some implication to the situation.

Murmuring under her breath, she removed one arm from his neck to run her fingers through her hair. It was full of blood and broken wood and Divines only knew what, but she was oddly comforted by the sensation of it. Her eyes screwed up and she hissed in pain as she touched the area that had been hit by the building that had exploded on top of her. She suspected she would have a bruise there and innumerable headaches for quite some time.

Jagged stone cliffs erupted from the ground on one side of the road, while on the other a blanket of snow lay on the ground. In High Rock it would have been almost unusual to see anything more than a layer of ice at this time of year, but in Skyrim it snowed all year round and none but a select few if the hardier plants could grow in this harsh environment. Looking behind them, Élusia saw that Helgen was nothing but a column of smoke now, no longer burning but still smouldering. "Why didn't we leave through the gate?" she asked Jonna when she noticed that it was intact.

"After I pulled you from the rubble I tried it. Locked. No doubt bandits will find that town the perfect home now. At least those Imperial bastards won't be using it to their ends anymore," he spat with venom in his words.

"The Imperials didn't cause a civil war."

Jonna stopped walking abruptly and glared at the woman in his arms. "No, they just sold out Hammerfell to the Thalmor, they just slaughtered thousands of men who were only seeking to safeguard their homes from those greedy High Elf bastards. Maybe they didn't cause the civil war, maybe not... Maybe Ulfric Stormcloak caused it by being a true man who could see what was happening to Skyrim, because he would not denounce one of his gods on the say so of... of some mer! The Thalmor caused the damn civil war! They cannot tell people what they can and cannot worship! They know nothing of the ways of men! And the Imperials... The Imperial bastards allowed it!"

"What do you have against the Empire?"

He put her down roughly into the snow, which melted around her and soaked her to the skin, the cold doing a tiny amount to alleviate the burning of her skin. "You should not pry in things you know nothing about, girl. If you would freely support the Empire then I will have nothing more to do with you." Turning, the Redguard man walked away, his long legs covering the ground swiftly.

"Jonna!" Élusia shouted after him. "You can't leave me here, you bastard!"

This time, however, he did not return to fetch her.

* * *

_Author Note: So yes, I was opposed to Skyrim fics for quite some time - mainly because I wrote for Oblivion and did not have the game yet. Since then, however, I have purchased the game and here I am, writing a story for it. Theoretically this shall be placed in the same slightly-AU setting that has come at the end of Brothers in Arms, namely and most notably Red Mountain erupting six years earlier than canon and Chancellor Ocato being assassinated a decade early, and not by the Thalmor. Everything else, however, should be the same._

_I have not written in some time, so if you spot any mistakes of inconsistencies, please feel free to point them out... And I shall not be completing One By One unless I have a few people specifically asking me to do so._


	2. Nin

_Thanks to those of you who reviewed chapter one! The first chapter is always the largest milestone to overcome, so your support is very much appreciated._

_**Random Reviewer - **Ah, thank you! I do admit the dialogue in the first chapter was a little bit off, but it was far from appalling XD More from Jonna and Elusia in this chapter :P ~ARTY~  
_

* * *

_Chapter 2 - Sting_

Élusia clawed her way along the path once her legs gave out from pain, and still fresh jolts of agony pulsed through them with every movement she made. When she looked behind there was blood in the trail she'd left and Helgen was nothing but a plume of smoke rising in the background.

_If I ever meet that Redguard again, I'll kill him_.

Her hands were numb from the cold and red raw from pulling herself through the snow. Her clothes were saturated and her head was thumping like a drum to soothe Corprus sufferers. She sat back up and folded her arms so that her hands were under her armpits in a pitiful attempt to extract some warmth from there, shivering as a gust of wind made her feel as though she was frozen solid, her teeth chattering.

_Strike that... I hear he's in the same region as me and I'll hunt him down and kill him._

It took her what felt like hours, but she made it to the river after crawling past some unusual looking stones with figures carved into them. The Breton wasn't even sure how she had managed it, and she was almost certain that she was going to her infections in her legs from the dirt she had dragged them through. As a last resort she swung the battered limbs into the flowing water in an attempt to clean them as much as possible, though with her current luck she wouldn't be surprised if a bear was pissing into this river a little way upstream. That would be typical.

"By the Eight!"

Élusia snapped around to find herself being stared at by a Wood Elf with an unstrung bow sticking out from a quiver at his hip along with several dozen arrows. He was wearing stout boots but only thin trousers under a belted green tunic, which led the woman to suspect that he had been in this province for some time and was used to the climate. For one, she was not and she shivered again, more violently than before.

"What happened to you?" he asked her slowly, maintaining his distance as though a wounded woman with her legs in a river posed any sort of threat to an armed mer. "A man sent me this way in the hopes of finding a survivor of Helgen... He said a dragon attacked and almost everyone was dead but there was a woman near the town..."

Despite her position, Élusia raised an eyebrow as though he was stupid. "Let me guess, a Redguard man dressed like me?" she gestured loosely to the tattered prison rags she was wearing. One of the wraps that had been on her feet was missing and the other was black from ash and mud, her trousers were torn in enough places that they barely constituted clothing anymore and the shirt was sticking to her body, covered in ice crystals. The Bosmer nodded warily. "That snake," she growled. "I need to get to a town so that I can heal my legs... I'm looking for Riverwood."

The man nodded again and started tapping his legs expectantly as though searching for something. After a moment his hand dove into a pocket and pulled out a small red vial. "Healing draft," he told her, offering it to her. "It's not very strong, but it should get you to town. I live there and I can show you the way..."

"I don't even know if I can trust you."

"What do you have that I could rob you of?" he pointed out, placing the bottle on the ground within her reach before stepping back and folding his arms. "The town is in fear right now. A huge black shadow passed over us and up towards the barrow," he said. He raised a finger and indicated a large structure on top of the hill across the river, massive stone arches protruding from the cliff-side. "It could come back at any moment. If you think I would rather be standing here than searching Helgen for survivors or making plans to defend my home, you are wrong."

Élusia grimaced and uncorked the little bottle, sniffing at the contents in case she caught a whiff of any kind of poison. It was true that killing her would gain him nothing, but she refused to let her guard down, especially if that awful Redguard had sent him up here. Barely satisfied, she sighed and upended the vial into her mouth, feeling the rush of liquid on her tongue; it was sweet, almost unbearably so, with an aftertaste of mushrooms that made it somewhat unpleasant to swallow. The second it hit her stomach she felt a tingling in her legs which showed her that it would, at least, serve some kind of alchemical purpose. Warmth radiated outwards but was directed down into her legs and she gasped in pain as something in one of them shifted; tiny cuts were healed along her skin as she watched the water continue to wash away the blood and the thumping in her head quieted a little.

When she tried to stand the Breton could tell that he had been right when he had told her that the potion was not a strong one as an agonising sensation lanced through her body. She gritted her teeth to stop herself from swearing. "Could you help?" she growled at the Bosmer, fighting her every instinct to sink back to the ground. He nodded and approached her cautiously, allowing the woman to lean on him. He was slightly taller than she was, which made the entire position a little awkward to maintain, but it was enough for her to limp slowly down the path in the direction of what she hoped was Riverwood.

"I can see you to a room in the Sleeping Giant," he told her. "But after that, I don't know. That Redguard who sent me to find you headed off in the direction of Whiterun, if you're interested in catching up with him." Élusia had to bite her tongue to stop herself from making an incredibly rude and inappropriate comment about the man who had left her in the snow. "Just stay away from Sven," he muttered under his breath.

"And who, pray, is Sven?" Élusia asked, rolling her eyes a little.

"A bard..." Looking over, she saw that the man was blushing. "He seems to think his ballads and sonnets will make Camilla Valerius want to marry him, but he clearly has no idea about women; intelligent and beautiful women don't fall for that sort of thing... I think."

The Breton raised an eyebrow. "A woman?" she said incredulously. "An Imperial woman, by the sounds of her... You're an elf. If I were you, I would give up. An elf and a human?" She made her best attempt not to shudder. "Think of what the children would be like!"

"I think that love shouldn't have boundaries like that," the mer insisted. "You can't judge me for my choices."

"Well if she's flattered by this Sven character then maybe you should take a hint."

Riverwood wasn't quite what Élusia had been expecting. She had been envisioning something like Helgen with wooden walls and stone towers, and instead all she got was a village with a singular timber fence, bordered on one side by a mountain and on the other by the river that she had had her legs dangling in. At least, she supposed, the town was aptly named. Most of the structures were made out of dark wood that had been weathered by time and patched up in more places than a beggar's shirt, but they were sturdy enough to stand against the weather. _Not against a dragon though_. From the entrance to the town, she could hear the clattering of logs being pushed through a sawmill and the loud clanging of metal on metal in a blacksmith's forge, the clucking of hens as children threw them chunks of bread that had gone stale, the faint sound of a blade against a grindstone.

"Oh Divines, he's found another one," the voice of a woman cut through it all as she rounded on them from a small path to one side. "Helgen?" she asked the Bosmer quietly, and he nodded grimly. "At least we know that people have survived..." She turned to Élusia. "The Redguard before you told us a dragon attacked... Not everybody knows so please, do your best not to cause a panic. You are lucky; we have seen worse injuries from wolf attacks at this time of year." Taking the Breton's free arm, she proceeded to shepherd the newcomer towards one of the largest buildings in the town. "Come on, let's get you inside and some food down you before we find a potion to take care of those wounds."

She was strong for a female and virtually carried the budding mage up the three small steps to the door of the inn. _Sleeping Giant Inn_, said the sign, and underneath the face of a giant was carved into the plaque, its great beard seeming to cover most of the available room. The inn was probably the best maintained structure the town had to offer, with a roof that looked as though it had been re-thatched this last summer and small ivy creepers dangling down the walls that made it look almost inviting. Inside a huge fire was blazing in a pit that took up most of the central part of the room, a spit over it with was looked like a rabbit cooking and a large black pot hung at one end filled with some kind of broth. The whole area was thick with smoke but the smell was divine and inviting and so Élusia managed to overlook the stinging of her eyes as she entered. A fellow Breton woman in a patched blue dress was behind the bar arranging bottles slowly and methodically, but her head snapped up when she heard the door slam shut behind the three new arrivals; other than that, the inn was mostly empty at this time of day.

"Orgnar!" the Breton shouted at the sight of them. "We've got another casualty!" She slid around the bar as a large Nord man appeared from a room to one side carrying a barrel that Élusia assumed was full of ale. "Is this it, Gerdur?" she asked, looking Élusia over with a quick sweep of her eyes. "No more?"

The blonde Nord woman shrugged. "Faendal found her."

"She was halfway down the road from Helgen with her legs in the river," the Bosmer explained slowly. "That Redguard man who came through earlier told me to go up and find her. I never made it to Helgen, but the town is burnt – I could see that from the road. It really does look like a dragon attacked."

"Don't be stupid. The idea that a dragon would attack Helgen is absolute hogwash," snapped the innkeeper. "Faendal, you had better go and see if anybody is trapped in the town. We'll take care of this one. Gerdur, take her through to one of the beds, any one will do. Orgnar, hold down the bar." The Nord man grunted a reply and hefted the barrel he had been holding to the ground with a sloshing sound.

"They went to Helgen Keep, the others," Élusia muttered to the Wood Elf who was apparently named Faendal. "If anybody survived, they're in there." He nodded and left without a reply. "There _was_ a dragon," she insisted. Nobody saw fit to respond.

She was half-carried into a simple room containing a bed with a straw mattress and a set of drawers. When she sat, Élusia felt her legs sigh in relief as they no long had to hold her weight, throbbing painfully as if to make her pay for torturing them. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth together, her hands balling into fists as a particularly large wave of agony and nausea clouded her senses.

"You say there were others?" Gerdur was asking her as she lit a tallow candle. In the light, she looked almost familiar as she pushed her locks of blonde hair behind her ears.

Élusia nodded. "Stormcloaks and Imperials. A man named Ralof told us to come here, me and the Redguard, but he disappeared when the dragon knocked a building onto us. Jonna – that is to say, the Redguard – said that he went into Helgen Keep, but I saw the dragon had crashed through part of it, so there's no way of knowing what happened..."

"Ralof?" The Nord had paled a little. "I always told him he shouldn't have joined the Stormcloaks... I told him there were other ways to rebel without taking up arms." She saw the look the Breton was giving her and proceeded to explain: "Ralof is my brother. I pray that he was made it out alive..."

The injured woman nodded again. "He mentioned a sister when he was trying to get a blade to cut our bonds. An Imperial soldier, a Nord... I don't remember his name, but it was as though they knew each other."

"Bonds?" Gerdur put a hand on the chest of drawers to steady herself as though someone had punched her. "I told my brother not to join the Stormcloaks... I told him! I support the cause, but... This Imperial soldier, was his name Hadvar?" Élusia admitted that it was. "I pray that they are both alive then. While Hadvar may have different views to my brother and I, we were close when we were younger. Do you know where the soldiers were captured?"

"Falkreath." The word tasted bitter in her mouth as memories of her capture and subsequent near-death experience came flooding back. "Ulfric Stormcloak was leading his men against Falkreath." She decided that now was probably not the time for her to voice her hatred of the rebels and their cause.

"Jarl Ulfric? By the gods..."

"I didn't see him beyond a tower in the courtyard of Helgen Keep. I presume he made it out alive."

The Breton innkeeper bustled in with a small wooden bowl and a spoon that she presented to Élusia without ceremony. "Rabbit stew," she announced. "You would do best not to mention dragons to these folk. We don't want to cause a panic." She folded her arms and turned to the Nord. "If your brother is alive, Faendal will find him. Go back to your family. Orgnar caught that boy of yours trying to put bugs in our stew again; keep him under control or next time I will be the one to punish him." Gerdur gave a glum, half-hearted response and left, the door flapping on its hinges for a few moments before somebody, presumably the man on the bar, gave it a good slam and the sounds ceased.

At the mere mention of somebody trying to put bugs in the stew, Élusia gagged and instantly all traces of hunger abandoned her. She cut a piece of what looked like potato in half with the crude spoon and decided that she ought to force something down; healing potions usually worked best on a full stomach. It tasted nice enough, but the thought of ingesting insects was enough to make her insides twist over on themselves. "Thank you," she muttered, taking the other half of the potato to her mouth with the spoon and chewing it thoughtfully. "I wasn't expecting to see a fellow citizen of High Rock in a place like this."

"And you haven't seen one either," the other woman bit back. "Skyrim is my home." After an awkward moment of silence, she moved to examine the casualty's legs. "I'm no healer, but I think I have a potion that could fix them. If I were you, I would earn some money chopping wood for Hod at the lumbermill and then travel to Whiterun and see a proper healer there. I gave that Redguard friend of yours the same advice, but I'll be damned if he listened to me. Wait here."

She left Élusia alone with a chunk of carrot to occupy her attentions as she carefully sliced it in half and bit into it sullenly. The piece of vegetable was a welcome introduction to her palate, but it practically disintegrated in her mouth, leading her to wonder with a distinct sense of paranoia just how long the stew had been bubbling away on that fire, delicious as it was to her starving body. She had always been a fussy eater.

A shadow in the doorway made her look up. "I brought you some ale and some bread," the Nord man said kindly. "But I wouldn't eat 'em 'til Delphine gives you that potion of hers or she'll go spare." He placed a tankard on the chest of drawers and left a chunk of blackened bread on the bed beside her. "Don't mind her. She acts like a bitch, but she means well." He chuckled softly and walked back out of the small room again, poking the fire with a large stick as he walked past and turning the rabbit on the spit so that fat and grease dripped down into the flames from the nearly charred carcass.

"Orgnar, go over to Hod and put some more wood on that fire," the returning innkeeper snapped at him. "And then you promised to sweep the entrance weeks ago! Go make yourself useful." She brushed past him and presented Élusia with a vial similar to the one that Faendal had given her earlier except that the base of the bottle was rounded and altogether larger, with more of the red liquid sloshing about inside. "Get that down you," she instructed, pressing it into the hand of her fellow Breton as she took the bowl of stew and placed it on the chest of drawers. "By the swelling on your ankle, I would say it's broken, so drinking that potion will hurt. Can't heal a broken bone in a broken place and walk on it."

The mage couldn't help but cringe at the thought of her bones snapping back into their correct place; the sound alone would be enough to make her feel ill. She had seen bones pushed back into place by potions before, as well as by spells and even by hand, and it was not a process she had ever felt a particular desire to be a part of. Still, she drank it in one swift gulp so as not to delay the inevitable. The ability to walk was something she had found that she rather treasured.

Delphine had not been lying when she had said that it would hurt. Élusia's first instinct was to scream as the entire bottom part of her leg seemed to shift to one side while the other limb set about throbbing painfully. She dropped the bottle onto the floor, where it shattered into a million shards of blood red glass, and her fingers curled on the edge of the bed, gripping on as though that could alleviate her suffering. Then another piece of bone moved and she _did_ scream, tears streaming from her eyes almost like the river outside, clouding her vision. She felt pain stab her at varying intervals along her leg as though it were healing tiny fractures in the bone, and a third movement in her ankle set her whole mind ablaze to the burning agony that occupied every minute part of her conscious thoughts. The magic from the potion seared upwards, lodging one of her hips sideways which made the whole appendage it was attached to spasm as nerves were disturbed within. One rib, two ribs, three ribs snapped straight again, and one finger made an audible crunch as it moved, enough to make her already pain-drunk mind feel nauseous. The next time her ankle displaced itself, Élusia's brain gave up fighting and she blacked out.

When she came to, the other Breton was walking around the bed with a broom, presumably disposing of the remains of the vial she had dropped. She felt groggy as though she had spent months on a boat and finally reached dry land, searching for a headache that never put in an appearance.

"Six breaks," the innkeeper mused as she swept. "Three ribs, dislocated hip, four fingers. Whatever happened in Helgen certainly did a number on you. It's not completely healed and your legs are looking a bit black and blue, so if you want to avoid a repeat of that potion, start saving your gold now." She pulled a face and then looked back at her sweeping. "Better eat up and get some rest. Help Hod in his mill and you'll earn some coin, or you could always help Faendal skin what he hunts – though I don't know how much hunting he'll do if he's searching Helgen for survivors. Most people here will pay you coin for the work you do, long as you do it right. You can have this room for a couple of nights, but if you want to eat our food, you had better pay up soon as you have the money." Delphine sighed heavily. "You won't earn much here, but if you want the people in Whiterun to give you a second glance, you'd better try. For one, you look like a dirty beggar or some kind of common whore in those clothes. I'll have Orgnar leave a bucket in your room if you want to wash some of that blood and stuff off you; river's usually clean enough for washing at least."

Élusia looked at herself and only then realised just how filthy she had become. The clothes were torn and blackened, covered in mud and blood and even pieces of rubble that had somehow clung to her in her journey from Helgen to Riverwood; the legs of her trousers had been split up to her knee and hung in rags while her shirt had lost a sleeve when the building had fallen down on her head. She nodded, rotating her ankle slowly. It still hurt, and she had a series of scars running all over her body, but at least it would bear her weight now. "Thank you," she murmured, picking up her now lukewarm bowl of stew. "Do you mind if I sit out there for a bit?" she asked, gesturing towards the fire.

The innkeeper shrugged. "Suit yourself. But if anyone comes in, I want you to tell them you were attacked by a pack of wolves, alright?" Élusia agreed reluctantly.

_The Sleeping Giant Inn_ was really a different place once she got out of the stuffy little bedroom that she had been stuck in for Divines only knew how long. There were no windows – she supposed it was too cold for them – so the Breton could not tell exactly what time of day it was outside. She turned to ask Delphine but thought better of it when she saw the other woman attempting to rid the floor of the glass shards that _she_ had created; the innkeeper probably thought she was a burden more than anything right now, and asking stupid questions would do nothing to help the situation.

Sitting herself down at a table on her own, Élusia turned most of her attention to the stew, attempting to split a stringy piece of meat in two with the wooden spoon. _I need to get out of Skyrim_, she thought sourly, slipping the almost slimy piece of flesh into her mouth and chewing it with disdain. She forced herself to swallow it and took a quick gulp of mead to wash some of the flavour off of her tongue, but she was alarmed to find that even that tasted decidedly rancid. It was a nice inn though, even if the food and drink wasn't up to much and its keeper seemed a little frosty. _Maybe the climate of Skyrim gets to people_. The bread as a little stale, but it was edible if she dipped it into the stew briefly to give it some semblance of moisture.

The door opened abruptly and a man slipped through carrying an instrument hidden underneath a thin cloak. His entrance let a freezing cold breeze into the inn and the non-local shivered when she felt it, huddling into as small a space as she could manage until her body restored its temperature. "Wind's picking up, Delphine," he said colloquially, casting the outer garment aside. He was dressed much like the other people in this town in an undershirt, a long blue tunic and a sleeveless brown vest, belted at the waist over tan coloured trousers and high boots. The Breton noted that he carried himself with a certain air of arrogance that didn't seem to become him, and he wore a dagger in plain sight on his hip as though it were meant to threaten whoever saw him. He was as strong as an average Nord, true, but there was nothing else that gave him a menacing appearance. Drawing out a fine looking lyre, he plucked a few strings experimentally before he even noticed the mage. "It's not often I have an audience," he muttered with a wry smirk. "Are you the one Faendal pulled from Helgen?"

Élusia was indignant. "Faendal didn't pull me from anywhere," she snapped before placing a chunk of vegetable into her mouth and ruminating on it slowly to show that she did not wish to continue this conversation at the present time.

Apparently the musician could not take a hint. "Forgive me, but my mother is ranting about seeing a dragon fly over Bleak Falls Barrow. Tell me she's just an insane old lady." He edged a bit closer to her table and leant against a wooden pillar that was holding up the ceiling, gazing at her intently as she chewed.

She could almost feel Delphine's glare boring into the back of her head as soon as that question left the man's lips. "I don't know," she mumbled. "It all happened so quickly. There was fire and shouting, and then a building fell on my head." As if to emphasise that fact, she raised a hand and brushed aside a few strands of her brown hair to show him the bruise that she could still feel but no longer seemed to hurt. This time, a piece of less-than-appetising meat found its way onto her palate.

The man shrugged as though the answer was good enough for him, stroking his instrument almost subconsciously. "Anything in particular you would like me to play today, Delphine?" Given the location of the town, Élusia highly doubted many people ever got a sample of his playing, but the effort was commendable in her mind.

"Surprise us with your musical prowess, Sven," the innkeeper sighed heavily. Her guest could not see her face, but she sounded weary, if a little relieved that the other Breton had managed to keep quiet about the dragon without actually lying about it. The story had been vague, and neither confirmed nor denied the truth, which made it somewhat excellent for their purposes. "The only payment you're getting tonight is the free ale. Your _audience_ is penniless."

Sven frowned deeply. "Well, ale is ale," he grumbled, beginning to play. He wasn't a bad player, but Élusia had heard better back in High Rock. She hadn't exactly been expecting a high court performance from a simple Nord in a tiny town in the middle of the frozen wasteland that was Skyrim, however, and she allowed herself to simply sit back and eat with her usual high degree of care. Sleep tugged her eyelids downwards with increasing persistence and eventually she felt as though she had to retire before she ended up face down in her bowl of fermenting stew.

She didn't bother to excuse herself, just stood and padded carefully into the small room again, wary of putting weight on her healed limbs even though she knew they could carry her. Closing the door behind her, she sank onto the bed and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands, wincing as she filled one with a lump of ash that made it water as punishment for a good few minutes. She swore and blinked furiously in an attempt to expel the foreign matter and then sat with one eye closed until the stinging subsided. If one thing was certain, she would be glad of the opportunity to wash some of Helgen off of her; it couldn't bear thinking about how many people's corpses she was walking around caked in.

When she lay down, her thoughts were so clouded with roaming images of scaled dragons that she could not find peace for some time, thinking about men melting into puddles under the heat of dragon breath and being swiped up in massive claws and dropped. Élusia cringed. She could have come off far worse than just having a building drop on her head. When she thought of Jonna she felt her fists clench tightly and decided not to follow that train of consciousness. She eventually allowed herself to slumber, but only with terrible pictures of grim and bloody battles being fought behind her eyelids.

It was not to be a restful night.

* * *

If anybody looked out of place in Whiterun, it was the ragged Redguard man who had just slipped through the gates. He had tried to scrub as much of the ash and blood from himself as he could before entering the city, but it had been woefully inadequate and even then his clothes were torn in more places than a common beggar's. His skin was a shade or so too light for a member of his race, and his eyes were a bizarre shade of grey so rarely seen amongst the people of Hammerfell that on occasion people would look at him and double take in surprise. Even other Redguards were giving him strange looks as he weaved between the city dwellers.

Whiterun was a town unlike any he had been in before, and Jonna stared at some of the buildings suspiciously. The class divide was as obvious as the fact that the city was on three levels, and early in the morning such as now the place was just beginning to bustle. He followed the street past a blacksmith until he reached the market where he saw men and women stacking and arranging their wares on small wooden stalls, guards watch them like hawks. One could buy almost anything here, from fruits and vegetables to weapons to jewellery, and the merchants were suspicious of a strange man in rags walking between them.

He paid them no mind and climbed the stairs. The upper level of the city was far more residential, and richer, if the architecture was anything to go by. Below, the buildings had been plain wooden, better than Riverwood had been, but not adorned in carvings like those up here. A large tree was prominent in the centre of a small square, surrounded by benches and the small streams created by water falling from the Jarl's keep at the summit of the hill. Dragonsreach; that was what the villagers in Riverwood had called it, and there was no mistaking even from below that it was grand, with neat stone steps leading up to it. To his right there was another building as well, larger than the rest and set above stairs – Jorrvaskr, he assumed, judging by what the warriors he had seen hunting wolves outside the city had told him. The home of the Companions. Jonna nodded in appreciation of the work they were doing; he would go inside one day if fate permitted him such an opporunity.

At the base of the steps to Dragonsreach, a man was preaching about Talos. _A good sign_. At least that meant that this town was not filled with scummy Imperials, and the Redguard could take some small comfort from that. He began to ascend the steps despite the looks that people gave him.

The Jarl's palace was probably the grandest building that Jonna had ever laid eyes on, and he took a moment to stare at the dragon carvings etched into the stone with a puzzled expression before forcing the massive doors open and stepping inside. Beneath his bare feet, the floor was cold stone – granite, perhaps, he couldn't tell – and the ceiling stretched above him to almost indiscernible heights. Servants glared at him as they trailed dust over the floor and climbed to the main area of the hall. A table was lain with fine silverware in the anticipation of breakfast and to one side of the hall, three children ran circles around another servant, one with a wooden sword clasped in his hand while yelling about smiting people.

"You. What do you want?" The Redguard snapped around abruptly to see a female Dark Elf pointing a finger at him. She wore leather armour that was intricately studded and one of her hands rested firmly on the pommel of the large sword she was wearing on her hip that thrummed with a faint magical aura.

"I must speak with the Jarl." Another set of stairs led upwards behind the throne, and in the corner of his eye Jonna saw a pair of figures descending it, talking in low voices about something he could not make out.

The Dunmer pressed her lips together sourly. "Jarl Balgruuf is not accepting visitors," she spat after a moment.

He shrugged apathetically. "Fine. Don't say nobody tried to warn you when a dragon is battering against your walls with its razor claws and fire breath." It would be sad to see Whiterun fall, but the only people he would mourn for were the Companions in Jorrvaskr. He turned to leave.

"You, Redguard," a male voice replied to him. "Dragons, you say?" The speaker was a Nord man with long blond hair and an almost equally long beard, a circlet resting on his brow that was inset with a large ruby and two smaller sapphires. He wore an impressive sleeveless tunic with woven details that was belted at the waist, and clasped to his shoulders was a luxurious fur mantle that reached almost to the centre of his back, perhaps part of a wolf pelt. His arms bulged with muscle like a man who had done much fighting in his time, veins prominent through his skin as he sank into the throne, slouching to one side of the carved chair. A small and largely bald Imperial man stood near to him, and Jonna had to resist the urge to growl under his breath at the sight of a member of that race, regardless of their role in society. "Where does this information come from?"

"Helgen." Tearing his eyes from the steward, he attempted to remain focused on the Jarl himself as the Dunmeri woman slipped to his other side.

"My Jarl," the woman said. "Our sources tell us that Helgen was attacked by bandits and razed to the ground. Bandits hold no immediate threat to Whiterun."

"It was _not_ bandits," Jonna snapped. He imagined that meddling Breton woman in Riverwood had sent a message on that it was, given that she was so set on not allowing people to realise that dragons had returned. Frowning, he realised that he was already beginning to dislike Bretons almost as much as Imperials. "It was a dragon. I saw it with my own eyes when those Imperial _bastards_-" He spat on the ground to make his point, noting how the steward cringed a little at the spectacle and garnering some sadistic pleasure from it. "- were attempting to cut my head off for their own purposes. Black as night with teeth as long as my forearm and eyes that burned like fire. Bandits could not raze a town with such ease."

"You're very open about your criminal dealings." Jarl Balgruuf sounded almost amused.

"I am not the criminal here, the Imperials are."

"Opinionated too." The Nord let out a mirthless chuckle. "So a dragon. Dragons returned to Skyrim... What would you have me do about it? We have not faced dragons in hundreds of years."

Gerdur had asked him for help. "Riverwood requests troops. They feel that with Helgen gone, they are in the most immediate danger." The Nord nodded in appreciation of the situation.

His steward spoke up, "My Jarl, would it not be better to maintain a strong base of troops in Whiterun? After all, Riverwood is just an outlying settlement, the citizens of which could easily be accommodated here in the city should the need arise. Moving soldiers to Riverwood would result in leaving Whiterun weakened and therefore more susceptible to dragon attacks."

"So you would leave people to die in order to protect your own skin, Avenicci?" Jonna's opinion of the Dark Elf woman suddenly soured with that statement. "My Jarl, moving the people of Riverwood into Whiterun would do nothing more than cause them to resent your rule as you make them abandon their livelihoods. If we do not protect them, they will believe that their Jarl has failed them and simply does not take their well-being into account. We have the troops to spare, my Jarl. Allow us to send a small detachment to Riverwood so that the people feel safer and we shall not be overburdened by the loss."

"With all due respect, Irileth, we do not have the troops. I have been looking into the accounts of the city guard and seen that we are lacking in many areas. Riverwood provides us with very little that helps the city..."

The Jarl raised a hand to silence them both. "Irileth is right, Proventus," he admitted. "The opinion of one's people is more important than the size of our account books." He turned to the Dunmer. "See that you send a few people to Riverwood. No more than a dozen. If in doubt, train the people of Riverwood to protect themselves. Tell them that if any dragons are sighted, they must send a runner to me immediately and I will come to their aid myself if I must." The woman nodded and left immediately, sweeping past Jonna towards the exit as the Jarl then turned to his steward. "Proventus, send a bird to the other hold capitals and warn them of the situation. Tell them to keep it contained so as not to spread panic, but that they must be on alert. Tell them of Helgen and the destruction caused by this creature, and to try and find some method of killing it. If it has attacked once, I suspect it will come back."

When the Imperial man left the room, the Redguard allowed himself to relax slightly.

Balgruuf then rounded on him. "You showed you have a good head on your shoulders by coming here," he admitted. "And by surviving Helgen. Perhaps you are somebody I could make use of in my city... You look like a good warrior underneath all that ash – can you swing an axe?"

"I'm more partial to a blade." _In the face of a snivelling Imperial bastard_.

The Nord nodded with a wry smile. "I thought you looked like the type." He stood. "Go to Warmaiden's, by the city gate, and tell them the Jarl asked you be provided with armour and a decent blade, and for it to be added to my personal accounts. I believe I have a task for you."

* * *

_I'm not sure how long the next update will take. I'm busy with university work and I'm attempting NaNoWriMo this year, but I shall endeavour to do so as soon as possible. Thank you for reading, and don't forget to leave a review!_


	3. Pahlok

_Chapter 3 - Arrogance_

Jonna could not remember the last time that he had felt himself weighed down by armour. There had been a time a few years ago when his steel plate had been a second skin perfectly forged for his large frame and the greatsword on his back had been no burden. He had cut through the ranks of Imperial imbeciles like a knife through a wheel of soft cheese and none had been capable of stopping him.

His mistake had been leaving Hammerfell, and it was one that he would always regret.

An Imperial woman was bent over the armour that he was having made, a fact that almost made his blood boil. She talked of her father being the Jarl's steward and he was forced to grit his teeth and turn his attention instead towards the lump of steel that was slowly being moulded into the shape of a breastplate with every blow of her hammer. The soft metallic chink sound filled his ears and his dark eyes rolled shut in an attempt to relax under their power until they were replaced by a sharp hiss as the woman plunged the metal into a barrel of water in a thick cloud of steam. She allowed the creation to cool and then knocked leather straps into it casually so that it could be fastened onto his form.

The fit was as perfect as his greaves and gauntlets had been, and for a moment the Redguard was forced to admit that the Imperial had a talent despite her race. Her husband was a large Nord with a brown beard that almost reached his chest and Jonna got the impression that he merely sold the things that his wife forged; he stood leaning against the wall of their shop, arms folded and head nodding appreciatively as he watched the woman fit the armour she had just created over some basic linen clothes to prevent the metal chafing against his skin.

"The Jarl offered to get you some armour, huh?" he asked colloquially. The huge muscles in his upper arms gave the Redguard the impression that he had likely at some point been a warrior. "What did you do to deserve that?"

"Nothing of consequence." Jonna tried his hardest to ignore the Imperial woman buzzing about him and think of something more pleasant than crushing her skull between his fingers as she deftly tightened the straps.

The steward's daughter looked at him discerningly. "Do you need a weapon?" she asked him. "There are plenty in the shop, but I have just enough steel left over to create one from scratch if they do not suffice. What do you wield?" Her eyes narrowed as they roamed over his body. She paid close attention to the muscles in his arms that were visible beneath the tattered shreds of the shirt that he had been wearing since Helgen. "A sword, I'd wager," she muttered, pressing her lips together and placing her hands on her hips. "Maybe a broadsword."

"I prefer a greatsword." He despised making conversation with Imperials, even ones as skilled as her. The woman's skin was probably a shade darker than his was and he suddenly felt conscious of his race whenever he looked at her. I am a Redguard, he thought to himself solemnly.

"A two handed weapon?" She nodded. "We don't have many of your kind asking for two handed blades. Ulfberth, I think we have one inside that would be suitable." Her husband slipped away from his position on the wall and for a moment Jonna wondered if he could get away with killing her and leaving, but then he realised that with the proximity to the city gates, he would be doing so within clear view of the guards. Last time he had tried that, he had lost everything. "Do you want a helmet?"

He shook his head firmly. "I prefer to wear a cowl," he murmured. Briefly, Jonna found himself wondering why he had never taken note of the woman's name, but then he realised that he would rather die than have the name of some Imperial rolling from his tongue as though implying some form of relationship between them. She was just a blacksmith; if he thought about it like that, he could manage to not despise himself for wearing her armour.

"Follow me," she said, beckoning him into the small wooden structure that made up her shop.

He complied begrudgingly, taking in the leathery smell that hit him the moment he crossed the threshold. It was a simple affair: a counter with armour and weapons racks on either side, small blades lined up on the table and helmets forming neat rows along the shelves behind where her husband Ulfberth was rummaging. Doors behind presumably led to where the couple slept and kept their books.

The Nord pulled a blade from the rack that he was poring over. It glinted in the light thrown from their tiny window, a dull grey in colour with almost no embellishments to speak of. The weapon was perhaps four feet long from tip to pommel, the hilt wrapped in leather so that it would not slip from the grasp and the cross guard little more than a strip of metal that curled at either end to protect the hands of the wielder from glancing blows, something like the swords that he had seen used to train the rawest of knights in years long past. Jonna took it from him and held it in front of him, fingers on both hands curling around it to test how it felt.

It was not perfect. Perhaps it was a tad too light in hands used to a heavier or longer blade. Perhaps the balance was slightly off. He couldn't tell, but it would serve its purpose. Ulfberth gave him a leather sling and he strapped it to his back so that the hilt poked up over his right shoulder.

"Thank you," the Redguard muttered. His eyes rested on the Imperial woman as she placed a leather cowl on the table followed by a pair of thick leather boots.

"You won't survive in Skyrim without decent boots, Redguard," she explained as he slipped them onto his feet. "Don't you go and ruin my armour by dying in it."

"I don't intend to." Jonna pulled the cowl over his face so that it was partially shadowed. "I must return to Dragonsreach now."

He was pleased to be in the open air again, his new boots crunching the ground underfoot that was still slightly frosted from the previous night. Children were out now, buzzing between the houses like bees between flowers, giggling as they played their games. The Redguard sighed, but he felt more at home in this place than he had done when he had been dressed in nothing but rags. He vowed that one day he would enter Jorrvaskr as he passed it with nothing more than a longing glance, climbing the steps to the Cloud District.

Jarl Balgruuf stood when he saw the man again. "It is hardly Skyforge quality, but it will serve you well," he commented. Jonna did not know what the Skyforge was, though he remembered the blacksmith woman babbling about how she was only the second best in Whiterun in the deepest mists of his memory. "This way." The Nord stepped from his raised platform and led him to a tiny side room in which a man stood pouring over some kind of book.

The Redguard did not have to enter the room to realise that he was stumbling upon the chamber belonging to a wizard. Stands against the wall thrummed with magical energy that seemed to bounce off or collide with absolutely everything that the room contained. The desk was large and cluttered, bent in half at one point and covered in papers and what looked like spell tomes; there was a certain amount of organisation to it, but it was clear that the mage in question was researching something by the level of disarray.

"My Jarl!" the wizard said in surprise, looking up. It was obvious that he was a Nord, though he was far less burly than most of that race that Jonna had seen up to this point; he was wrapped up in blue cloth so that the skin of his hands and face were all that was visible beneath it, and even that was obscured. He shuffled his book away into a pile of like manuscripts hastily.

"Farengar, I believe I have found someone to help you with your little project," Balgruuf announced, folding his arms across his chest after smearing the back of his hand beneath his nose. He was not the most regal of men that the Redguard had ever laid eyes on, but something in the way he carried himself and spoke testified to his status, and it was clear that he was a natural leader on both the battlefield and in court.

The mage appeared perplexed. "My project? Oh, you must be referring to my work on dragons, my Jarl?" His fellow Nord nodded in affirmation and Farengar turned to Jonna. "I need something fetching for me," he said. "Well, when I say 'fetch', I really mean 'delve into a dangerous ruin in search of an ancient stone tablet that may or may not actually be there'..."

"What say you?" the Jarl asked him. "For one who survived the massacre at Helgen, I doubt it will be too difficult for you."

Jonna considered this proposal for a moment, pressing his lips together as he tried to scan the wizard's research discretely. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to present itself to him. "Where would I be going and what would I be fetching?"

A light smirk crossed Farengar's features. "To the point; this is good. I have learned of a certain stone tablet known as a 'Dragonstone' that is said to be housed in Bleak Falls Barrow and supposedly contains the locations of various dragon burial sites. You are to go to Bleak Falls Barrow and retrieve this tablet. It is likely in the main chamber and so this should be little effort for you. Once you have it, bring it to me – simple."

"Bleak Falls Barrow?"

"It is an ancient Nord burial ground on the hills above Riverwood," the court wizard said. "You probably saw it when you escaped Helgen. If not, I am sure that the villagers will no doubt show you the quickest path to reach it."

"Riverwood," the Redguard repeated, frowning. For a minute his mind flicked back to the Breton woman that he had left behind in the snow, and he found himself wondering whether they had found her or not. "Alright. I will attempt to retrieve this 'Dragonstone' for you."

"Excellent." Farengar's smile was joyless as he measured the adventurer's reaction. "I will await your return with much anticipation."

* * *

Élusia stooped down and began to pile the freshly cut logs into her arms with a heavy sigh. It was not work that she enjoyed, and after only a day she was sure that her hands contained more splinters than flesh. At first swinging the axe had been a difficult thing for her, but one of the Nord children showed her how better to hold it, much to her embarrassment. Once she had loaded herself with as many pieces of timber as she could hold, she dragged herself begrudgingly to Hod, stowing the pitiful amount of coins he gave her in return into the makeshift coin purse she had created from scraps of the rags she had worn from Helgen.

Groaning, she ran a hand through her hair that had returned to holding some resemblance to the auburn colour that it had been before becoming filled with ashes. Élusia winced and glared at a large splinter poking from her finger, gritting her teeth and plucking it out. It was nothing compared to the agony of her ankle, but this manual labour was a million miles from the life that she was used to back in High Rock.

"Lucan, I cannot believe you let thieves walk off with that damn golden claw!" a woman was growling from the other side of the cobbled street. Two Imperials stood on the porch of the Riverwood Trader, a man and a woman who looked so similar that they could only be siblings. "Look, someone has to do something about this. Did you see where they ran off to?" She pushed up the sleeves of her plain dress, dark eyes narrowing.

The man shook his head. "Bleak Falls Barrow-" He grabbed her arm. "But it's not important. They only took the one thing, and I will not have you running into that accursed place on your own."

"Well we have to do something!" She tried to shake him off. "Look, I can fight!"

"Don't be stupid, Camilla. We're done talking about this. Come on, inside before the whole town knows we were robbed." Lucan ushered his sister inside, closing the door firmly behind them.

Élusia watched them through cold silver eyes curiously; rubbing her hands against the patched old tunic that Delphine had given her to replace the rags she had brought with her until she snagged another splinter and had to pause to remove it. She shook her head and limped back to the mill where her 'beloved' axe awaited her resting against the chopping block.

Sighing heavily, the Breton gazed across the river in the direction of Whiterun, hoping she would get there sooner rather than later. She was startled to see a hooded, armoured figure on the opposite bank staring somewhat blankly at the path up the hill in the direction of the barrow. The warrior looked around before his shoulders sagged and he marched with purpose across the bridge into the village, unaware he was being followed by a woman with a recently healed leg as he approached the first person he laid his eyes upon.

"I was wondering if somebody could tell me which path leads to Bleak Falls Barrow," he said. His voice was drowned out by the clanging of metal from the blacksmith as the Nord who worked there hammered hot steel. There was a violent hiss as the tradesman quenched his project in water and looked up at the warrior expectantly. "The path. To Bleak Falls Barrow. Can you show it to me?" He sounded almost as exasperated as his voice sounded familiar to her Breton ears.

The blacksmith chuckled, smearing charcoal across his leather apron and thrusting the recently cooled metal back into the fire, pulling on the bellows to stoke the flames. "No can do, my friend," he said, pushing the coals around with a poker. "I have a lot of metal to smith today." He scratched his beard thoughtfully. "Say, who made that armour of yours?"

"Some woman in Whiterun." The warrior seemed quick to anger while trying to maintain a calm exterior. "Look, who do you suggest I ask instead?"

"Adrianne? I thought so. Looks like her work... Never did meet a woman as good with a hammer as that girl. Not a patch on Eorlund Grey-Mane, of course, but for a woman..." He stopped talking to move the coals around again. "I heard Lucan Valerius having a tiff with his sister a bit ago, something about their store being robbed and the thieves running off to that damn barrow. I reckon if you ask in there, they'll show you the way and you might be able to help them out." Pulling his metal from the fire, he placed it quickly onto the anvil and began to bash at it with his hammer. "But you don't want to go running around in a place like that if you can help it otherwise," he shouted over the din. "Few thieves are the least of your issues." He quenched the metal again, which now looked something like a blade. "But if you do go up there and ever need some dents knocked out of your armour, I'm your man."

"Thank you for the offer," the familiar stranger replied through gritted teeth, backing out of the forge. He spun on his heels and stalked towards the Riverwood Trader, giving Élusia a momentary glimpse of his face. "Do you know which path leads to Bleak Falls Barrow?" he snapped at her, seeming not to recognise the woman. His dark eyes shimmered dangerously with anger.

"You bastard," Élusia snapped, unperturbed by the sword on his back that was probably longer than her torso and poked ominously over his shoulder.

He blinked at her. "Oh, it's you. You should thank me; I sent that Wood Elf to find you."

"You left me in the snow!"

"I have no time for Imperial sympathisers."

She put her hands on her hips, trying not to wince as another splinter made its presence known to her. "Well, that shop is run by Imperials... Just thought you might want to know."

Jonna scowled. "Do you know which path leads to Bleak Falls Barrow?" he asked her again as though somebody was holding a blade to his throat to make him be polite.

"Thought so," she smirked. Then she pursed her lips. "I'll show you the path if you take me with you."

"I cannot do that."

Élusia bowed mockingly, gesturing to the shop front. "Then your Imperial friends await you." She had it all planned out: convince Jonna to take her to Bleak Falls Barrow, have him kill the thieves that had stolen the golden claw, return it and claim some form of monetary reward - hopefully enough to get to Whiterun and beyond. It was flawless.

The apparent Redguard laughed. With his cowl over his face, his skin actually looked dark enough to belong to a member of his race. "From what I have seen of you, oh chosen Breton, you cannot do magic and I doubt you have ever wielded a weapon in your entire life. You would be dead before I even unsheathed my blade."

She was indignant. "I can do magic!"

"Prove it," he responded, one eyebrow raised.

The Breton grumbled and gestured for him to follow her back to the river, only increasing his amusement. Once there she muttered an Ayleid word under her breath and sent a fireball skittering into the river.

Jonna laughed. "Well, I'm terrified." The sarcasm was so thick that Élusia could even taste it and he clapped a gauntleted hand on the steel plate he had gained since she had last seen him. "Unfortunately, oh chosen one, I believe anybody with even the tiniest of magical aptitude can cast that spell." To prove his point, he cast one himself, turning away from her to hide the grimace on his face that came from using magic that he had not tapped into since his youth. "I am afraid I cannot take you with me. I believe I made that most clear by leaving you in the snow. You cannot even walk properly yet!"

"You owe me for leaving me behind."

"I owe you nothing."

"I was wounded!"

"I sent someone to find you." He pushed past her, glaring at the opposite bank and willing it to show him the road which led to Bleak Falls Barrow. It was more obvious from this side of the river and his lips pulled into a smirk. "Alas, chosen one, it appears as though I am no longer in need of your assistance. It is better this way; you might yet live until dusk."

Élusia cursed. "Take me with you!" she shouted after him as he stomped away. With his long strides and her recovering ankle, she had a hard time matching his pace and soon fell behind. "You don't care if I die, so what would it be to you if I did?"

He turned to stare at her. "Not liking you is somewhat different to leading a lamb to slaughter, girl. You are injured already and taking you in there would be nothing short of murder. I have killed only for justice…"

"And for your prejudice against Imperials. Yeah, I get it." The Breton growled as she glared at him.

"Should have left you under that building," he mumbled, teeth gritted. "I am _not_ taking you with me. You can follow me as much as you wish, but if you die then it is your problem and not mine." Jonna stormed up the hill towards the barrow and Élusia watched forlornly as he left her behind for a second time, again unable to do very much more than make a pitiful attempt at following in his footsteps.

She knew he was right and that she'd be killed in there, but she wanted to be out of this village before too long. She wanted to be out of the whole province if she could manage it, but the civil war was making it so difficult to cross the borders that she doubted she would make it even once her ankle and purse were restored to their former health. The woman was not used to being poor or doing manual labour, and she was especially not used to being left behind by idiotic and bigoted Redguards. Élusia growled loudly, dragging herself back across the bridge to where her axe lay resting against the stump where she had left it; she picked it up and buried the blade into the flattened tree stump in her frustration.

"That's not 'ow you chop logs, missy." She rounded on the speaker to see a tall Nord with long sandy coloured hair and beard that had matted together to form some kind of eternal knot surrounding his head. His clothing was stained a sickly brown that reminded Élusia of the ale that they served in the Sleeping Giant that didn't really resemble any other kind of ale that she had seen before, and his large frame pulled on the seams as though they were far too small for him. He had his thick arms folded and was leaning against the battered table on the other side of the wicker fence, watching her in amusement. "My 'ead's 'urting enough without you shouting at that man cross the river. Can't imagine why he wouldn't wanna take a pretty little thing like you up into that 'aunted barrow, now." He chuckled heartily.

Élusia glared daggers at him, trying to wrench the axe back out of the log before simply shouting in annoyance and kicking it. She tried not to flinch as pain shot through her foot.

The man staggered as he walked around the fence, one hand always resting on it for support. He freed the stuck tool with ease and then chuckled again. "Should gimme some gold for that, eh, missy?"

She rolled her eyes. "Not a chance."

"Name's Embry," he said casually, looping his thumbs through his belt and rocking backwards and forwards. "Pretty thing like you got a name?"

Élusia pulled a face. "Not that you need to know."

"Don't you go being like that, now," the Nord said as though hurt by her scorn, pointing a finger at her sloppily. "C'mon now, girly. It ain't like that Redguard wants you goin' up into that creepy place and spoiling that pretty little body of yours." He gestured in the vague direction of Bleak Falls Barrow. "Course, if you go up there now, he's probably killed all them monsters anyhow, so you could just… walk through, right?" Embry laughed.

The woman frowned. She had no idea what was up there, but she couldn't deny that this blatantly hung-over man had a point. Nodding to herself, Élusia took the axe that he had set down and hefted it in her hands in contemplation. "Alright," she muttered, limping in the direction of the bridge.

"Oh, eh, you shouldn't go up there, missy. Its proper dangerous. Why don't you stay down 'ere and 'ave a drink with me or something?"

"I think you've had enough, frankly."

Across the river the path wasn't as steep as it had appeared from the town, pounded flat by the feet of the group of men who had built it many eras ago to house the dead. She had read in a book once that the dead in the barrows in Skyrim had a tendency to walk, but she couldn't see that true without some form of input by a necromancer and they were likely just tales woven to prevent pathetic adventurers straying inside in search of ancient Nord treasure.

Her head snapped around when she heard a sound to one side of the path and she stepped carefully around the large rock from which the noise appeared to be emanating from. Élusia clapped her hand over her mouth in shock to see a man choking on the blood that was rushing into his throat, a blade having obviously slid all the way through his body just below the ribcage. His clothes were torn and dirty and a discarded sword lay a small distance from his hand, an Imperial beneath the grime with his dark eyes clouded with fear and pain to such an extent that he did not see the Breton peering at him from what she deemed was a safe distance. She imagined Jonna was behind it, though she could not tell which man had been the first to draw his weapon. At least the dying man looked as though he was a bandit.

She left the man to die, unable to bring herself to end his misery though she knew she ought to. She had never killed a man and she intended to keep it that way for as long as possible.

The stone arches of the barrow were ominous and the snow beneath them was tracked through with several sets of footprints leading inside but none leading back out. Élusia hated snow already. She waded through it, trying to keep an eye out for anybody who might think to ambush her as she made her cautious way up the twisting stone stairs. Nordic architecture was some of the blandest she had ever seen, and the lumps of rock rising from the earth and snow did nothing to make her feel at ease in this place, freakish gargoyles peeking down at her from above in shapes that had long since grown indeterminate due to the weather battering them.

Droplets of crimson were scattered across the white ground near to the entrance, and the Breton doubted her resolve to go inside when she spied an eviscerated corpse lying on its side nearby, cold fingers attempting to claw at innards that had long since leaked out into a steaming pile. She resisted the urge to be sick through a surprising amount of willpower.

The iron door was hidden behind a pillar, carved into the rock like the rest of the barrow. At a more appropriate time she would have marvelled at how long it must have taken the Nord stonemasons to chisel this place, but as it stood she simply shook her head to expel the idea firmly and tiptoed inside. The room behind it was cavernous and might have been awe-striking had part of the roof not collapsed to allow snowflakes to swirl and dance inside; debris littered the ground, and the only thing holding up the rest of the mountain was another huge stone pillar in the centre of the chamber. She could just about make out the glowing embers of a fire behind it, the smell of smoke thick in the air.

Dead bodies were slumped around the remains of the camp, one of them face down in the ashes with a deep gash to her head. The fact that their treasure chest was untouched struck Élusia as odd, but she snuck down the stairs gravely while hefting her axe minutely higher than before and doubting her own logic for coming down here in the first place.

What had disturbed her most about the old barrow so far were not the dead bodies lying around, nor even the old burial jars or eerie aesthetics. It was the spider webs that clung to all of the surfaces the further she ventured down the tunnel behind the camp. Élusia _hated_ spiders, even the small ones, and the prospect of running into any made her heart pound in her chest.

Tree roots protruded from the rock and twisted around the floor, old and gnarled. They formed a carpet on the ground in some places, and it was all the Breton woman could do to prevent herself tripping over one of them or getting her foot stuck as she descended more stairs, following the snaking passages past stone cauldron holding fire that was somehow still burning after all these years. Magic, maybe. Hopefully Élusia would be able to learn magic like that at some point in her life.

Unexpectedly the passageway began to slope upwards again, narrowed in places by fallen stonework, and at one stage she saw a rickety old bookshelf containing manuscripts that had been ruined by time and now lay blackened and crumbling. The tunnel opened out into a large chamber, a slightly raised podium with a lever in its centre and a gate at the other end which had an irritated Redguard slashing at it with a massive sword.

"You won't get through like that," she said, wincing as he snapped around ready to kill her.

"Oh, it's _you_." Jonna straightened up and glared at her. At the base of the central pedestal the body of a bandit was stuck through with dozens of arrows and slumped over to one side. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised you wish to get yourself killed. How do you propose I get through this gate, oh chosen one?"

Élusia looked around, limping forward to get a better view of her surroundings. From here it did seem as though the gate was the only way to progress any further into the barrow, and the fact that she had not yet stumbled upon the golden claw led her to suspect that it was further through as well. A set of stairs led upwards to the right and the platform ran alongside the wall, two ugly looking stone faces with pictures of animals mounted up there with a third apparently having fallen down to the lower level. "It's a puzzle," she murmured, frowning. Three columns with similar creatures sat in little alcoves on the left. She pointed to both sets of pictures "I think that these have to match those. And then we pull the lever and hope we don't get shot like that guy."

"And if you're wrong?"

"Well, we'll both die then, won't we?"

The man growled audibly. "Fine," he said, rolling his eyes. "Tell me which pictures we need."

Élusia squinted at the old carvings, limping up the steps as quickly as she could manage and running her hands over the time worn images. "The first one is a snake, it looks like… And the third is some kind of fish." The second had fallen down and she descended to its position while Jonna clumsily made an attempt to twist the revolving columns to the correct picture. "Another snake. The pictures should be snake, snake, fish."

"I hope you're right."

"Well, I'll pull the lever if it would be a consolation to you."

The Redguard glared at her. "Why are you here?" he demanded. "You're not a warrior. You're not even a mage. You don't look like you've ever done a hard day's work in your entire life, and I'm surprised you had the presence of mind to even bring that axe with you, not that it will be much use in your hands since I doubt you can swing it very well. So tell me, chosen one, what brings you to this barrow?"

"I need to get out of Riverwood, and if I have to wait until I split enough logs to make money to travel then I will be there for months. Something was stolen from the shopkeepers in Riverwood, and if I return it then I can claim some kind of reward and be on my way." It felt stupid when she said it aloud.

"Why don't you just walk to Whiterun?" He made it sound as though it was the most obvious option in the entire world.

Élusia raised an eyebrow, though she couldn't deny that the option had occurred to her at one point. "And what do I do once I'm there? Live on the streets and beg for food? That's like walking from one nightmare into another. I don't even want to be in _Skyrim_, and I wouldn't have been by now if those stupid Stormcloaks hadn't been in Falkreath."

Jonna bristled with anger. "Do not blame the Stormcloaks. Their cause is perfectly just – they fight only to free their lands from Imperial dictatorship."

"I think you would join anybody who allowed you to think you had the opportunity to kill Imperial men and women. How exactly did they wrong you? What could be so dreadful that an entire race should be made to pay?"

"Flip the lever."

"I didn't think you'd give me an answer."

"_Flip the lever_."

"Flip it yourself, you intolerant bastard." Élusia had been unable to bite the snapped response before she had said it, and the flare of rage in the man's eyes made her fear for her life the second she had uttered the phrase.

He stormed over to her and seized her wrist roughly, hauling her to the lever with fire burning in his cold, dark eyes. Her feet dragging on the ground did nothing more than make him jerk her around until she could barely touch the ground. Jonna threw her down next to it with enough force to draw blood from the impact, specks of red seeping through her improvised clothing. "I am _not_ an intolerant bastard," he growled savagely. "Now _flip _the lever or I will run you through." To back up the threat he drew his sword and gave it an idle slash through the air to display how it was already stained with the life fluid of the corpses she had stepped over and around in order to follow him.

Élusia had never been so scared in all of her years, but she stilled her terrors and stared at him emotionlessly. She didn't wince as she reached for the switch, as much as the tiny abrasions in her skin cried out in pain. _'Never show your weaknesses'_, that was what her parents had taught her. Inside you can be screaming, but on the outside you need to act as though it is the most meaningless thing that has ever occurred.

The mechanism that the lever was attached to clunked loudly as she moved it, and for one horrifying second she wondered if she had been wrong about the combination, until the gate began sliding upwards in a series of shuddering movements.

"I would tell you not to follow me, but I know you won't bloody listen," Jonna said pointedly. He turned smartly and took off through the opening at a jog, leaving the Breton crumpled on the floor.

She bit back the tears as she climbed to her feet and picked up her axe again, looking at the scrapes and cuts on her arms and all up the side of her body. Grimacing as she pulled the fabric of her shirt away from one that seemed to be bleeding a trifle more than the others, she attempted to recall a healing spell to no avail and then swore at her own inadequacy. How did she expect to be a mage if she couldn't even heal a scratch?

They felt worse than they looked, but nonetheless she limped after the Redguard as quickly as she could manage. The small chamber beyond the gate was unremarkable save for a chest that looked as though it had been locked tight for many years; there were scratches around the lock that made Élusia suspect a thief had attempted to gain access at some point. To the left, a rickety wooden staircase spiralled down further into the barrow, marked by time but surprisingly well held together. She descended it cautiously, testing each step before she put her full weight on it in case they gave way from the strain. Bloody skeever corpses were strewn about the base in a thick mat of cobwebs that made her shudder at the sight.

There wasn't anything in the room at the bottom of the stairs that was not covered in white web, the floor, the ceiling and everything in the room from the rotting tables to the crumbling scrolls that were falling to pieces next to rolls of ancient bandages and candles that had not held a flame in so long that they had green mould clinging to them. She quivered in fear as she pushed through them into a tunnel, trying to stick to the places that Jonna had obviously already run through. In some places the webs were almost solid, so thick that she couldn't see through to the other side.

Turning the corner, Élusia spotted a doorway that had been cleared almost totally and hurried towards it. Jonna was in the room, arguing with a Dark Elf who was tangled in the spider web and appeared to be one of the bandits. There was a metal gate on the floor that was so rusty it might break under the weight of a feather, but other than that the chamber was a featureless mass of sticky white silk, egg pouches containing hundreds of spider babies protruding from the walls. The Redguard seemed unperturbed by the surroundings as he growled at the Dunmer who was pleading to be allowed out from his bonds. Either he did not see Élusia, or he did not care that she was present.

She was stepping forward to cross to grate to where Jonna was standing when her blood seemed to freeze in her body, sending the chill right to her core and staggering her with a yelp. Falling onto her back, Élusia came face to face with the largest spider she had ever seen climbing down from the ceiling to feast upon its prey. She blacked out before she even had a chance to scream.

* * *

_Author Note - __Yeah, this took a long time. Longer than I wanted it to take, but I was busy over Christmas etc and I got struck with a bad case of writers' block after finishing my NaNoWriMo (I won!)... Still, I've scraped this together, so let me know what you think, because I'm currently attempting to improve my writing style somewhat_


	4. Diin

_Chapter 4 - Freeze_

It was cold. Colder than Élusia had ever felt before. Cold enough that her limbs and digits ached as she attempted to move them painstakingly towards her throbbing head.

Her fingers were white and veined with blue, almost agony to bend. She shuddered and pressed them to her face, frozen skin against frozen skin. Groaning, Élusia moved her hands around to the pain in her skull to check for any wounds.

When they brushed against something rough and hairy she sprung to a sitting position faster than she had thought possible in her current state, snapping around to stare into the grotesque features of a spider larger than she was. Shrieking, the Breton leapt to her feet and backwards against the wall, sticking herself into its web without even thinking and crying in distress. She clawed at the sticky substance desperately, wrenching herself free of it through pure will to survive, her mind whirring so fast that she didn't even comprehend the burning pain in her body.

The spider didn't move. Her heart pounded in her ears as she watched it warily, tensed to run at the first sign of a twitch. The axe that she had taken from Riverwood was underneath one of the spider's hairy legs and it made her shudder at the thought of attempting to retrieve it.

Once Élusia was satisfied that it was truly dead, she snuck closer. Planting her feet so methodically that walking forward three steps took over a minute, she stooped down at a safe enough distance and stretched towards the axe handle, her skin crawling. Her fingers closely around it and she sighed in relief, pulling the whole axe a little closer to her. The blade nudged the leg that it was lodged under and caused it to move closer to her hand.

The Breton had shrieked and jumped back onto her feet before she even realised that it was her who had caused the movement rather than the possibility of it being alive. Groaning, she retrieved the weapon and tiptoed around the corpse warily. She prayed that there would be no spiders further into the ruin.

She slipped through the door in which she had last seen the Dunmer man caught in the web which had thankfully since been cut away. It felt warmer without the presence of spider webs in every nook and cranny. The remains of a tiny fire were dying in a large stone torch and Élusia took the time to warm her fingers on the embers that cast a dull orange glow over the surroundings. In places the covering plaster of the walls had fallen away to reveal horizontal slats of stone stuck into the mountain side to shape the passages of this burial ground. An altar was strewn with cracked ceremonial jars and bandages that had turned solid from their time underground in the cold.

The next chamber was much the same, but minus the light from failing flames. Darkness clung to the walls in sheets.

Small rooms opened out into long corridors with high ceilings and the remains of Nordic gargoyles seated to guide the spirits to Sovngarde. In places Élusia could almost see the inscriptions written on the walls that were so aged they had crumbled to dust on the floor clearly disturbed by two distinct sets of footprints. Regimented holes held bandaged corpses of warriors of old, Nord men and women from eras long since passed. Some held nothing but a body, but some of the others held trinkets of medallions and brooches that sent a shiver down the girl's spine to see. She was surprised that they had not been looted, but stealing from the dead was frowned upon by all cultures that she could think of. Thieves had probably been too frightened of vengeful spirits.

A few of the corpses were not in their assigned spaces.

It took Élusia several moments to comprehend that some of the fetid, emaciated bodies were strewn about the floor with limbs hacked off or gashes most of the way through their long-dead flesh. Immediately her mind leapt on the stories that she had heard that the dead in the barrows walked, but she dismissed it as stupid. They would be soldiers who had died defending this place, surely. Some still had clumps of hair clinging on to what little meat had been preserved on their bones, beards and moustaches the grisly additions to faces swallowed by time.

The Breton shuddered and picked her way around them, trying to prevent her eyes being drawn to the drying blood stains up a wall of savage looking metal spikes that had come away from the stonework it was hinged to. There was a body lodged underneath it that prevented it from moving in either direction, one half mashed into a pulp and the skull split open. Fragments of brain matter surrounded the corpse of what appeared to be the Dark Elf from the web. The gash to his side said that he had fallen before the device had smashed his head open, but it was impossible to tell which had killed him from the distance she kept herself.

She stepped warily over a corpse blocking her path and squeezed through a gap between the wall and the metal spikes, twisting her body so that it would fit. Jarring her ankle as she stepped away, Élusia swore as pain lanced up her leg and made her grimace. "Why won't you get bloody better?" she growled at the injury as though just yesterday she hadn't been unable to walk on it.

There were bloodstains but no corpses as she rounded the corner, crimson splodges dotting the floor away from the piles of bodies. Was it Jonna, perhaps? She couldn't be sure, but she was certain that he deserved his injuries for abandoning her beneath that spider. Remembering the dead arachnid sent a shiver running down her spine.

Taking one final glance behind her, the Breton saw something glinting in the minimal light within the dead Dunmer's clothing. She frowned and prepared to walk away until she remembered that she had entered this ruin in search of a golden claw stolen by thieves in Bleak Falls Barrow. Scowling, she took a pace towards the corpse and squatted on the non-spiked side of the metal wall, ignoring the agonising protests of her ankle. Élusia pushed her axe handle through the grating to twitch aside the blood-stained cloth and gasped in surprise and relief as in the dim light her eyes settled on a golden statue in the shape of a dragon's foot.

A strange smirk crossed her features as she slipped back around the trap, crouching down as far away from the corpse as she could possibly manage. She used her axe handle to hook the claw and pull it free of the mangled body, flicking it across the room in the process. It clanged noisily against the stonework into the shadows and Élusia swore. She walked to a dried up torch stuck through a bracket in the wall and mustered just enough magical fire to light it and provide her with a little illumination. Wrenching it from the rusted metal holder with trembling hands, she surveyed the area into which the claw had bounced and was relieved to find it against the wall. She stooped to pick it up.

"I need that." The voice made her jump. She spun to see Jonna behind her, a bloody gash on his cheek and dents in his armour plating. "It's a key." He held out his hand and she shuddered to see that his arms were splattered with crimson that could only belong to the unfortunate Dunmer on the ground. "Give it to me."

Élusia shook her head. "It's mine!" she cradled it against her chest defensively.

The Redguard rolled his eyes, trying to hide the wince from his wound. "Don't make me cut you down for it," he muttered.

"It's mine!" she repeated, though less frantically. "It's going to get me out of Riverwood."

"The Jarl of Whiterun sent me her to search for something, and I need that claw. You're welcome to it once I have used it, but the treasure I seek is far more precious than a stupid gold trinket. Think about it – you're going to sell it to an idiot Imperial in a tiny town with almost no money?"

Élusia paused to think, and before she had a chance to react Jonna had snatched the claw from her minutely slackened arms. "Give that back, you-" She leapt at him, scrambling for her prize. Her axe and the makeshift torch clattered to the floor, the fire guttering abruptly.

He threw her off as easily as tossing a chopped log onto a pile. "You have to be the most stupid person I have ever met," he murmured.

The sudden collision with the ground had made the Breton groan with pain as she landed on the axe handle, and when she tried to stand again her ankle was a wash of agony. "I'm having that back." Her teeth were gritted so tightly that the words were almost indistinguishable.

"Provided you don't die on the journey through."

Jonna turned on his heels, barely avoiding the bodies on the floor as he strode away. Élusia did her best to follow him, picking her way carefully past the corpses and slipping around the metal grate that groaned as she placed a hand on it to steady herself when she stumbled. Fearing it might move and kill her, she pursued the Redguard with more haste.

There were more bodies in the lower chamber. One of them had had its ribs smashed and now its chest was little more than a tangle of flesh and bone, dark congealed blood striping the wound. The room was smaller than the one above, but more bandaged figures were stacked in alcoves in the wall. Ahead of her, the stairs that led upwards again were completely blocked off by a collapsed passage that let in a few slivers of light and a chilly breeze that sent shivers down her spine. To the left of the chamber, an unusual sound drew her attention away from the carcasses.

A series of axes swung like pendulums in the small passageway, disappearing into the stone on each side briefly before carving their way back across to the other side. Élusia suspected Jonna had just run between them with her golden claw and left her to negotiate them herself and she shook herself before she started cursing him violently. She stepped forward, gulping. The blades were rusted in places but still appeared to be deadly sharp, perpetually swaying as though they had been enchanted to do so for the rest of eternity.

An idea struck the Breton as she approached and she dropped to her hands and knees, abandoning any of the remaining dignity that she had still managed to retain since leaving Jehanna. She crawled beneath the weapons, her arms shaking beneath her as she worried about her head being removed by one of them. To her surprise, Élusia found herself still alive on the other side and she stood up to dust herself down.

The corridor was narrower on this side, but bound bodies still surrounded her on both sides. She had to admit that the Nords made good use of space when burying their dead. She had barely turned two corners before she almost walked into a headless corpse, a helmet with the skull still inside spinning eerily a little way further on. Another body had been badly scorched by what looked like some kind of oil, small fragments of pottery scattered by what she suspected were Jonna's heavy footsteps through here with her prize. The burning smell was still lingering as she jogged past it, afraid of losing her claw forever.

Maybe the bodies were fresh… They were rotted, though, and no self-respecting necromancer would choose to set up in a place like this that was considered hallowed ground by the Nords below. It would be too obvious so close to civilisation…

Eventually the path forwards became uneven to tread as the stones became more eroded and Élusia was forced to walk again for fear of doing further damage to her already painful ankle. Opening into a large chamber, the ceiling had all but collapsed and a steady stream of water was gushing down the walls and dribbling across the floor between the fragments of debris. The small bridge across it made the Breton believe that it had always been there, but a glance skywards showed rather more of the darkening heavens than she could possibly accept as having been allowed in deliberately. A twist of vines knotted across the floor and snaked up some huge pillars with carvings that had been largely washed away by time.

"Dead end," she muttered to herself, frowning as she saw the door across the little stream had caved in on itself. Standing for a moment, perplexed, she considered where exactly Jonna could have gone, following the water as it flowed across the room and disappeared through a large opening in the wall. It took her a moment. "There," she whispered, nodding. "Typical." She was only wearing the cloth shoes that Delphine had allowed her to have from the _Sleeping Giant_, and they were definitely not appropriate attire for scaling streams. Then again, the thought of Jonna walking off with her bag of gold was enough for her to surge forwards.

Underfoot the stones were slippery with moss that was growing in the water, and once or twice she almost fell before steadying herself against the wall with the hand that was not clutching the axe rather too far down the hilt for it to function as a weapon.

The cave that the stream led her to was filled with green light that seemed to be emanating from some mushrooms on the walls. Had she paid more attention to the alchemy books her parents had tried to force her to read, she might have been able to name them. She followed the water flow until it burst through the wall and into the cold outside, the cave twisting in a different direction and twisting downwards so rapidly that she soon found herself at the base being doused in its icy spray as she crossed a narrow rock bridge covered in a thin layer of snow containing three sets of large boot prints, two leading forwards and one trudging back, and a smaller set that ended in drag marks over the edge towards what looked like a twenty foot drop.

Had Jonna truly walked this far before realising that he needed to return for the golden claw? _Élusia's _golden claw. It angered her just to think about the way that he had stolen it from her and simply run away. She was glad to get back inside the cave, particularly when it merged back into the ruin and allowed her sodden feet a chance to regain feeling from first water and then snow.

Climbing over the rubble that was in such large chunks that it all but blocked the path she spied an open set of double doors and hurried towards them, doing her best not to jar her wounds as she dropped back to the floor. The iron cladding on the door had indentations in it in a language that she did not recognise, and on the other side of it a huge circular fire pit surrounded by twelve primitive gargoyles that resembled dogs, blazing magically. For a moment, the Breton was almost tempted to stop and warm herself by the flames, but she forced herself to run onwards, crawling under another set of swinging blades into what looked like a sanctuary for the dead.

Huge slate coffins were dotted around the room and several had been forced open, the massive stone lids strewn across the ground. A wooden walkway led to the second floor, more corpses littering the ground on both. The top level was not extensive and the view of the lower was blocked by rotting wooden panels. An unsteady-looking table was propped up in the centre of a small alcove, covered in a fine layer of cobwebs and a thick layer of dust, while a dilapidated bookshelf with collapsed shelves was flush with the wall, tatty remains of books all that it contained. The wood-walled passage led her around in a loop, similar small room arrangements budding off from it at intervals until it opened up to a surprisingly well-maintained stone bridge across the sanctuary.

She heard Jonna's cursing before she saw the man, a sadistic smile pulling at her lips as she rounded the corner into a long thin room with few decorations. "Why won't you bloody open?!" he shouted at the door, apparently frustrated as he pressed the golden claw – _her_ golden claw – into it.

"Not very good at puzzles, are you?"

He showed her his middle finger and continued pressing the apparent key into the stone at the end of the room.

"I would take a look if you gave me my claw back." Élusia had to admit that he had piqued her interest the moment he had mentioned that he was looking for something far more prized for the Jarl of Whiterun, but her pride would not allow her to say so. Not to mention, he could very easily have been lying to her.

Jonna practically threw it at her head, muttering threats at the girl as she was forced to duck out of the way and then retrieve it. It felt good to be able to touch the gold metal again; slightly warm from where the Redguard had been handling it but ever beautiful – _and valuable_. She ran her fingers over the three-toed dragon foot, intricately carved with stunning patterns. Élusia was about to take a moment to marvel at the thing when her impatient and unwilling companion cleared his throat loudly and snapped her back into reality.

She approached the door and looked at it. Three holes where the claws would insert within a circle, which probably stood to reason that the golden claw _was_ the key. It was surrounded by three stone circles of increasing size, animals carved into it at positions that did not seem to quite match up. "I imagine it's a combination," she muttered, running her hand over a moth in the innermost circle. "But what would it be?"

Stroking the golden claw subconsciously, her attention was suddenly drawn as her thumb ran over indentations on the lower side and she flipped it over. Three animal symbols ran down the length of the ornament, a bear, moth and owl. Frowning, she pushed the picture of the moth on the door and was rather surprised when the circle moved freely. She turned it to an owl, the second circle to a moth and the outermost circle to a bear. "Should work," she said to nobody in particular, double checking the dragon claw in her hand. "And this is the key…" She pressed it into the holes and the central circle slid into the door with a clunk.

Jonna pushed her out of the way and began to twist the claw like a handle without warning, the three animal circles spinning of their own accord until they lined up at three bears and the entire door shifted. A great gush of released air rushed from within as some ancient mechanism sounded a deafening clunk and the great stone slab of the door disappeared into the floor leaving the Redguard with the claw still trapped in his surprised grasp. "Amazing…"

"Give me my claw back."

He gave her a withering look. "Even if I give this back to you, I know you will follow me up those stairs." He indicated the ones down the now open tunnel. They led upwards and appeared to be so caked in dust that they were almost white in appearance. "I doubt you'll be much use, but I intend to hold onto this claw unless there is a further door for which I require its use."

"You wouldn't have got this far without me! You'd have been stuck in that room with the twisting columns or been shot with that trap! You have no right to-"

"To what?" He tucked the golden claw into his belt pouch and drew his sword. "If you are alive once I have reached and obtained my target then you may have your key back." The Redguard paced forward, measuring each step before he pressed his foot to the ground, and began to ascend the stairs. Clouds of dust erupted into the hair whenever he stepped and he turned his face into the slight protection of his cowl.

Élusia pulled the basic cloth shirt she was wearing other her nose and mouth, following him. At the top of the stairs delicate threads of spider's silk hung down from the ceiling and in amongst the patches of collapsed debris. Aside from the rubble, the passageway was a perfect circle, broken in places only by the creeping vines that had worked their way into the stonework and dislodged parts of it. The gloom was thicker than the dust and clung to everything like a skin. The pair were seeing things in it now that they never would have seen in the light, no longer stumbling around in the dark as they entered a chamber where the ceiling was held up by a series of six weathered pillars. A colony of bats was disrupted by their presence and flew at them, making the Breton squeak in fright.

"Pathetic," she heard Jonna mutter as she regained her composure. He put a hand on her, listening. "Water."

When she focused Élusia heard it too, the gentle crash of a waterfall. At the end of the chamber rays of light were appearing, and the nearer they edged to it the louder the sounds grew. Suddenly the ceiling darted upwards at least a hundred feet into a huge cavern. Water gushed from the walls in several places and large chunks had fallen from the ceiling to allow light from the now dark sky to pour inside. At the centre a platform was carved into the stone with three sets of stairs ascending to it. The face of a dragon crudely laid into the wall behind it with some kind of altar at the front, lit by the dull light of a magical fire pit that the Breton was surprised hadn't gone out in the wet air. The whole structure looked almost like a throne in the dimness, large enough for that scaled black monstrosity that had attacked Helgen, almost.

Jonna took off towards it, crossing the bridge over a rivulet and taking the stairs two at a time. His sword clasped in his hands despite the lack of obvious threat.

Élusia's eyes went wide as she followed him, cradling her axe as though she had any idea how to use it in her own defence. She took the steps slowly, the spray from the nearby waterfall soaking through her clothing and spitting in her eyes to obscure her vision. The Redguard was on his knees in front of an ebony chest, scrabbling with the lid in order to open it, but Élusia was drawn in the opposite direction towards the wall onto which the dragon's visage was inlaid.

There were markings in it that were so regular that she assumed that they must be symbols in some language that she could not understand, scratches and punctures gouged into the stone in distinct groups of three. She took a step into the semi-circular zone and was struck immediately by a sense of being drawn to one particular set of the marks as though they were pulling her in.

"What are you doing?" Jonna shouted at her, trying to lever the chest open with his blade to little success.

Élusia pressed her fingers to the first three scratches, marvelling at the warmth of the stone. She traced them methodically, moving onto the next three and then the final set, recoiling as if stung. Her brain buzzed uncomfortably and she glared at her hand.

"Get away from there and help me with this," the Redguard was saying other a din of ringing in her ears.

She shook her head, putting a hand to her ear with a groan and screwing her eyes shut. _Fus_. The word occurred to her from nowhere, and it didn't even make sense. "I'm losing my mind," she grumbled. The dragon wall was no longer drawing her towards it, and she was about to turn back to Jonna when she heard an almighty crunch. She spun around in time to watch the top of what she had assumed to be an altar fly into the air and crash down into the water below.

The creature climbing from the coffin was made of bone and sinew, humanoid in appearance like a well preserved zombie. It still wore armour that was stuck against its body after however many years it had lain dormant. Fur boots hid skeletal feet, and the rags that had once been trousers clung to its waist at a strip of leather studded with metal rings that appeared to function as a belt. The cuirass was gone, melted into the things chest so that they became one, and the helmet was dented viciously against the skull from which violent blue orbs glared.

It opened its mouth and a pulse of energy rushed away from it, forcing Élusia's back against the dragon wall before she had a chance to summon a ward and crushing the air from her lungs. Jonna fell backwards from the ledge as he was moved by the same energy, his armoured form clattering noisily down the steps. The Breton coughed in pain, looking back at the strange being to see that it had pulled a shield from its coffin and was drawing a rather sharp-looking sword. Shrieking, she ran with her axe clenched so tightly in her hands that she couldn't have swung it if she wanted to. She darted down the stairs as the creature focused its attention on her, shots of pain blossoming in her ankle and rushing up her leg.

"Get up!" she shouted at the crumpled heap of Redguard. He only groaned in reply, the metal plating of his cuirass bent in to constrict part of his chest. "_Get up!_" All this over a golden claw… "Do you want to be killed?!" She tried to remember the incantation to the healing spell she had learnt once as the undead thing appeared at the top of the stairs, staring down at them before beginning its descent.

It staggered as Élusia hit it in the leg with a badly aimed fireball, slipping from the steps with a crash and disappearing from view. "Get up now," she said urgently, offering Jonna a hand. He struggled into a seated position, coughing and loosening the side straps of his breastplate to allow himself to breathe. "What do we do?!"

"Preferably kill that damn thing," Jonna grunted, hauling himself to his feet. "But I've never seen one use magic before. I told you to stay away from that wall!" His attention shifted abruptly to the re-emerging humanoid. Its legs were charred and blackened, but otherwise it appeared to be unharmed. "I need you to go back up there and look for a Dragonstone. I don't know what that looks like, but I need you to do it. If you find it, I'll give you your stupid claw back." One of the talons of the claw was bent at a strange angle from where he had landed on it, but it would still be worth the money that Lucan Valerius would give her for it. The Redguard took off towards the creature, sword in his hands.

Élusia took the moment in which the being was distracted to run back up the stairs, falling into an uneasy limp as she reached the top of the stairs. Her ankle was pure agony now, and she knew that she ought to have stayed in Riverwood for a few extra days in order to let it heal completely. She had no idea what she was searching for, but she started where Jonna had left off by smashing the lock on the chest with the blade of her axe as the clash of metal on metal began to bounce from the walls.

The chest was empty save for a few items of incredibly rusty armour, some disintegrated scrolls of parchment and a relatively small pouch of coins that the Breton found herself dipping into before shaking her head when she heard her companion grunt with pain. She looked down to see that the undead thing had smashed his shield into Jonna's face and broken his nose. Blood was gushing like a river as the Redguard was forced back against a wall.

Élusia picked one of the ancient pieces of scrap metal from the chest and threw it at the creature, catching it on the back of the head with a loud clang. It turned angrily towards her, and this time when it sent its torrent of magic in her direction she managed to get her ward up in time. Instead of being thrown she was instead pushed backwards by the sheer force that hit her, almost as if the elements were coalescing to move her against her will and in spite of the shielding that she conjured.

She returned to the altar-coffin to see Jonna drop to his knees, his sword up to the hilt in the undead's spine. He spat blood and at least one tooth onto the ground, using his hands to hold the majority of his weight away from the floor. Staggering to his feet, Élusia saw the damage that the shield had done. His nose and upper lip were crushed together into a bloody mess, and he had enough crimson streaking down his cuirass to make him sway unsteadily. She made to descend the stairs, but he waved her away and pointed towards the altar. "Dragonstone," he wheezed, exhausted. He put a foot on the dead being's back and hauled his sword from it, pushing back his cowl and stepping under the nearest waterfall, relying heavily on the stone wall behind it to keep him upright.

The Breton examined the contents of the coffin in front of her, largely fragments of bandage, swinging her bad ankle over the side so that she could reach inside of it with her arm. She pushed the debris aside, grimacing at the thought of how many nasty things could quite easily begin crawling up her fingers if she left them in there for too long. At the very base, underneath a layer of sickly gloop that had probably once been flesh, she touched something with defined edges, warm stone despite the cold air. Plucking it out, she examined it.

The object was five sided, and looked to depict a rough map of Skyrim studded with stars in a number of locations. When she flipped it and brushed off the slime with her sleeve she saw similar glyphs to the ones that had been on the dragon wall, deep gashes in the stone and small punctures. It looked promising.

"Have you found it?" Jonna asked her, his voice quieted by the water pouring down on his head.

"I think so." Élusia climbed down from the edge of the coffin, trying to put as little stress on her ankle as possible. She doubted it would ever heal fully now. Limping off it heavily, she descended the steps to the waterfall and showed the carved stone to the Redguard, trying not to look at the mangled flesh of his face for too long. "These scratches are the same as on that wall. I think they're some kind of writing." He secured it clumsily into his belt. Against her better judgement, she offered him a hand from the torrent.

His steps were unsteady as a child first learning to walk, and they ascended the final set of stairs behind the dragon wall carefully into a small alcove of cave. Jonna leant against the wall at the top, exhausted by his wounds and the exertion of fighting. It was only then that Élusia noticed one of the cuts to his forearm was not bleeding but frozen, the whole limb a rather dangerous shade of icy blue. An enchanted sword, apparently. She imagined the chill running through him right now was similar to that which she had experienced due to the venom from the spider. If she had known more magic, she would have attempted to heal it.

A small podium with a lever stood at the end of the tunnel before a featureless stone wall and dead end. The thought of attempting to see Jonna back through the barrow was enough to compel the Breton to twist it and her efforts were rewarded as the stone shuddered and lifted away into the ceiling in a cloud of dust that made her cough.

The Redguard used her shoulder to keep his balance as they followed the tunnel to a small chamber. They found themselves on a ledge above a little room containing nothing more than a small offering of coins and gems and an opening to the province. Cold air whistled inside and sent a chill down Élusia's spine. It was dark outside, the night consuming everything with its hungry shadows.

"We won't make it to Whiterun tonight," the woman muttered. Her companion could barely walk, and the low temperatures would probably cause him to lose his arm if she tried to get him to the city. "We'll stay in the Sleeping Giant." She patted the small purse of coins hidden beneath her clothing and mourned the loss of them in paying for a room for a man that she didn't even enjoy the company of. To her relief, he did not argue.

Jonna managed to jump from the ledge somewhat awkwardly, stumbling as he hit the floor but remaining upright. Élusia was even less graceful, her bad ankle buckling under the sudden impact with the floor so that the ground rushed up to catch her.

When she regained her composure the Redguard was rifling through a small battered chest at the base of the shrine. He tossed her a weathered coin purse that clinked with the promise of money and pressed a fragment of amethyst into her hand when she went to help him to his feet. "Thanks," he grunted. She couldn't tell what he was thanking her for. At least the additional funds meant that she would not have to worry about paying for their stay in Riverwood.

They made their way down the mountain so slowly that dawn was stretching its claws across the sky by the time that they reached the village. Stumbling through the door of the inn, they were greeted by the friendly sight of a dying fire and the smell of burnt stew that seemed more comforting now that it had the last time Élusia had entered this place.

Orgnar grunted from behind the counter and a few moments later appeared above it to survey the wounded adventurers from outside. "By the Eight…" he murmured, climbing to his feet and stomping around the bar to where the pair were sprawled in front of the fire. "You ever gonna walk in here without being injured, girl?" The Nord hauled Jonna onto a chair and went to fetch more wood for the fire. When he returned he was carrying a pair of moth-eaten blankets, and tossed one to each of them. "Delphine ain't here… Said she had an errand and would be back in a couple of days. Where'd you run off to?"

"Bleak Falls Barrow." Élusia pulled the blanket around herself and watched as Orgnar prodded the fire with a long stick. "We'll be gone tomorrow, but Jonna was in such a bad way that I didn't think he'd make it to Whiterun. Once he's warmed up a bit we should be okay."

"Should probably get that lip seen to…" In his chair, Jonna just stared into the flames without making so much as a sound. "Don't think Delphine has any potions left after that ankle of yours."

"I'll get him to the city later. All he needs now is some rest, warmth and maybe some food." She pressed a handful of coins in Orgnar's fingers. "Hopefully that should be enough."

He handed them back. "We'll settle your debt when you're better," he replied gently. "Delphine wouldn't like it, but she ain't here right now. You two look like you both need some rest, and it don't sit right in my bones taking your money afore you're well. Sit tight, and I'll make you up some food."

* * *

_Author Note - Sorry this took so long to write, but I had an awful lot of coursework last month. At least it only took one month instead of three this time, eh? Anyway, thanks to those of you who reviewed. Always appreciated :) Let me know if you see any glaring errors in it, alright?_


	5. Faaz

_Chapter 5 - Pain_

"What a waste." Legionnaire Matthias Ostorius watched as the Nord's head dropped into the basket, tipping it over and rolling across the stage.

He wasn't the first man that the Imperials had executed today, and he would hardly be the last. General Tullius had been on a warpath ever since High King Torygg had been murdered, and more and more Stormcloaks were losing their heads. Helgen hadn't helped either, though the soldier would have thought that the reappearance of dragons would have sated the General's bloodlust.

This was a time when they should have been united against a common enemy, not chopping the heads off fighting men who could have aided their situation.

Still, the murder of the Nord High King was inexcusable, and the General had lost his opportunity to put an end to the rebel leader with the dragon attack in Helgen. Levelled the town, Matthias had heard from the mouths of the survivors. Stormcloak ploy to prevent the death of their leader, General Tullius had reported.

Though, Matthias couldn't have explained where the Stormcloaks would have acquired a fully grown dragon so many years after the beasts had vanished if he had been given several years to think about it.

_Necromancy_, General Tullius had said.

The last man was led out from behind the studded wooden doors of the prison and paraded through the streets of Solitude like a prize the Legion had won fairly. He was a resident of this city, and probably the prisoner whose guilt was most debated about among the people. His head had been shaved badly, probably using a dagger judging by the tufts of hair that still clung to his skull and the dried blood stains behind his ears. The crime that he was charged with was aiding Ulfric Stormcloak in the murder of High King Torygg, though Matthias had heard that he only opened the gate to allow Jarl Ulfric to escape the city. Opening a gate was hardly grounds for beheading a man, but if there was a chance that this one was in league with the Stormcloaks then the Imperials were not prepared to take any chances.

"Uncle Roggvir!" a young voice shouted. The sound of her cries pierced Matthias' ears like a knife. She was too young to be here, too innocent to watch a family member lose his head. A man pulled her back from the prisoner, ushering her away from the gathering crowd, probably a father.

The soldier took up his position at the base of the stage to keep watch over the crowd during the proceedings. It was not a job that he enjoyed, but he would never question the orders of a superior without good cause.

Roggvir ascended onto the platform silently, leaving a trail of bloody smears behind him from a cut on his foot. The spectators gathered like crows to a corpse, so morbidly fascinated by watching a man breathe his last. Didn't they have better things to do? Shops to be run, or songs to be sung. What was so enthralling about seeing people sent to Aetherius?

"People of Solitude," the Captain shouted to the roof behind the citizens. Matthias knew him as Captain Aldis, and he was notorious in his hatred of anything that might distract him from his duty with the Imperial Legion. "This man, Roggvir, is brought before the Legion for the crime of high treason and assisting in the murder of our beloved High King Torygg." He spoke loudly, but too quickly so that a good proportion of his words were lost as wind. A good soldier, a powerful Nord, but not a good public speaker.

General Tullius had dictated that there should be no trial and no formal funeral for the traitors. Forever their names would be besmirched, and their bodies would be put into a shallow, unmarked grave beyond the city walls as soon as the lot of them had been shortened by a head.

"There was no murder!" Roggvir said, alarmingly calm in the face of his death. The crowd booed, shouting insults at the condemned man. "Ulfric Stormcloak challenged High King Torygg to single combat, as is the way of our people, and he was victorious. This is the ancient custom of Skyrim!"

Aldis forced the man to his knees before the block as the crowd grew more ruthless. It was incredible how little it took for people to turn on one of their own.

The Redguard headsman Matthias did not know by name, but he knew that rending a man's head from his shoulders was an unappreciated art form. There were few who could manage it in a single blow. Every headsman he had ever encountered had the same air about them. With so strong an air of mystery and power, they could strike fear into most men, even men who were not placing their head on the block.

Roggvir didn't even wince when the Imperial boot on this back forced his neck to the stone, his lips moving silently amid the frenzy of the crowd. The other men who had died had received the same treatment, but this seemed louder to Matthias, who scanned the faces of the crowd for someone who actually seemed sorry to see a fellow citizen lose his head. The Nord who had pulled the girl away looked on from the back, stone-faced. He did not join in with the rest of the citizens, but the soldier could tell he thought justice was done. Perhaps he was the girl's father, perhaps the brother-in-law of the prisoner. The Imperial was not convinced he knew enough of Nord customs to discern otherwise.

The steel edge of the axe was already coated with blood, the red slick dribbling down its length as the weapon was raised. The prisoner had his eyes open, praying, staring down at the basket that was going to catch his head when it was removed from his shoulders. There was no way of knowing whether being beheaded was painful or just simply an ending.

Matthias looked down again at the scores of men and women below. There had to be at least one hundred of them, mostly Nords and Imperials who had been loyal to High King Torygg and were now loyal to General Tullius in avenging the man. Torygg's widow Elisif made for a notable absence, but she was no doubt up in the Blue Palace mourning for her husband on her own terms.

A loud metallic thud reached the guard's ears and he snapped around to see the headsman had dropped his axe, an arrow in his abdomen all the way to its green fletching. Alert, the Imperial drew his sword a moment before Aldis fell to another green arrow in the side of his throat. Matthias threw himself against the wall in half a heartbeat, hoping that the mysterious archer was somewhere where he would be safe from his position as the crowd scrambled randomly in every direction amid screams of terror.

Roggvir was kneeling up, confusion in his eyes as the headsman made an attempt to claw his axe back up only to have an arrow erupt from between his eyes in a shower of blood and brain.

The only standing guardsman edged his way along the wall opposite the town gate, naked steel glinting in the morning light with such intensity he was forced to sheath it lest it give away his position. The prisoner made a dash for the gate, and Matthias allowed him to do so in favour of saving his own life. He measured every step he took, searching for something that he could use as a shield from the barrage of arrows that was raining down on the soldiers who were running from Castle Dour as reinforcements.

He slipped underneath the porch of the Radiant Raiment as he heard the scrape of the lock from within as the owner shut herself inside. None of the citizens had been killed, not even the ones fleeing into Castle Dour over the bodies of legionaries. It was likely that whoever had carried out this attack was an expert marksman. All the arrows were clearly being fired from atop the shop itself, and Matthias realised with a groan that he would have to put himself within the target of the archer in order to bring the slaughter to an end.

Beside the door of the shop a pile of logs that had previously been neatly stacked lay in utter disarray, exposing a broken cart wheel. He didn't pause to think, lifting the heavy circle by its splintered axle to form a makeshift shield. He measured the steps he took backwards, careful not to expose his back to the archer or archers who were still wreaking havoc on the legionnaires below. Fewer men were falling now, taking the sensible decision to stay out of sight, but there seemed to be no progress in bringing down the assailant. They should have sent for their own bowmen, or maybe for a mage, but the Imperial couldn't help but suspect they were having trouble finding their own clear shot. Whoever it was on the roof of the shop, they were an excellent shot.

Arrows slammed into his wheel and staggered him, making him terrifyingly aware of the fact that the only thing protecting his long legs from their projectiles was a thin sheet of leather. He quickened his pace, running backwards into the relative safety of the small shelter outside of the Winking Skeever and ducking behind the wooden beams holding it upright.

He threw the wheel down, his arm aching from its weight and awkward shape. Three green feathered shafts stuck from it, the barbed tips just visible inside the wood. Matthias crouched slightly, peering upwards at the two figures stood on the roof. He knew they could see him, but the glare of the dawn sunshine stopped him from telling anything other than the number of people up there. An arrow slammed into the dirt less than three inches from his foot and he flinched away from the site of impact, squinting upwards.

A bolt of lightning leapt from his palm as he muttered the Ayleid words for the spell. It was one of the few spells he could remember. The lightning struck the roof just below the feet of one of the archers and they lost their footing, stumbling off the edge and catching themselves on the wooden beam.

From this angle it was obvious the archer was an Argonian dressed in shabby leather armour, their bow clattering to the ground abandoned. The other one ran to help, placing down their own weapon to reach the outstretched claws of their comrade a moment before an arrow stuck them in the chest and they fell head first off the roof.

The thud was sickening, almost as much as the wet sound that followed a doomed man losing his head. Matthias had watched the second one fall, and when he looked back at the roof the first archer was gone. He took the chance and ran to the bloody body outside the door of the clothes shop.

It belonged to a Dark Elf whose leg was bent at an unnatural angle that made the soldier's stomach turn over. White feathers of an Imperial arrow poked between his ribs surrounded by a crimson pool of blood. Surprisingly the man was still breathing, though Matthias didn't suspect that he would be for very much longer.

"Bastard," the mer groaned, twisting onto his side to coat the Imperial's boot with a glob of blood and spit.

"What were you expecting to achieve?" he demanded. A cursory glance across the street showed him that at least twenty legionnaires were dead or wounded.

The elf said nothing, staring up at the sky.

"It is the Nords who victimise your kin, not the Legion!"

"Idiot," the Dunmer groaned. He shuddered, wheezing.

A Legate marched up, helmet in the crook of his arm. "Good work, soldier," he announced. He stroked his beard thoughtfully for a moment and then turned to the pair of scrawny legionnaires who had followed him down. "Kill this one," he instructed them, pointing at the Dark Elf nonchalantly. "And you-" His eyes locked on Matthias. "- I will be recommending you to General Tullius for promotion."

"Sir," the Imperial saluted smartly, as the pair of young lads moved towards the mer. "With all due respect, sir, there were two archers. The second one escaped when this one fell. I suggest we keep him alive, sir. Find out his plan."

The Legate waved a hand to stop the boys. "Good thinking, soldier." He pointed at one of them. The legionnaire couldn't have been much older than a child, and clearly hadn't finished his training yet by the utter lack of muscles on his small frame. "Fetch a physician." The boy snapped a salute and ran away. "Your name, soldier?" He hadn't even taken the time to turn, and Matthias took a moment to realise that he was being addressed.

"Matthias Ostorius, sir."

"Been with the Legion long?"

"Three years, sir. Formerly of the Bruma City Watch. Five years there, sir."

"Must be used to the cold then, soldier!" the Legate chuckled mirthlessly. He was a full head shorter than Matthias and didn't take the time to meet the soldier's blue eyes with his brown. Both his hair and beard were closely cropped, the brown speckled with grey.

"Uhh, sir?" the remaining legionnaire shifted uncomfortably. The shakiness of his tone betrayed his uncertainty. "I think the prisoner is dead, sir." The Dunmer didn't appear to be breathing, and when the Imperial stooped to check his pulse he felt nothing.

"Damn. Well, I doubt they'll come back here again, lad. Carry the body to Castle Dour and be done with it."

Matthias' features set, his lips pressed tightly together for a moment before he spoke. "With all due respect, sir, they killed at least a dozen of us before we even had a chance to shoot this one. Not to mention that the Nord prisoner who was meant to be executed escaped."

"Stormcloak sympathisers, then." His expression was grim. "They're getting bolder since word arrived that Ulfric Stormcloak escaped Helgen. Let's keep the Solitude guards on high alert. Our priority will be to capture the next one alive. Still, good work ending this attack, soldier. Stay vigilant." He turned on his heels and marched away, leaving Matthias with the scrawny boy who looked rather uncomfortable around the dead mer.

"What's your name, lad?"

"Bradon Chestille," he muttered. A Breton name, not that the Imperial would have noticed the boy's heritage. His accent was non-existent and sounded as though he had been in Skyrim for most of his life, though now that Matthias paid particular attention he could see the distinctive high cheekbones of the Breton race. "I don't think these were Stormcloaks. Dunmer hate the Nords…"

"No, I don't think so either. In fact, I have a suspicion that the Stormcloaks aren't the only people in this province who have a reason to hate the Imperial Legion. I'd stay sharp, if I were you."

* * *

Jonna took a moment to get his bearings. His face ached painfully and it felt as though his lips had been mashed into the base of his nose. Shakily he moved his fingers to touch it, but flinched away when the stab of agony shot through him.

He couldn't remember leaving Bleak Falls Barrow, but he knew for a fact that he was no longer there. He was slumped slightly in a chair in front of a dying fire, a moth-eaten blanket slung around his shoulders. His arm was wrapped tightly in another ripped up blanket, but felt perpetually cold.

The useless Breton girl from Helgen was sat at the chair across the table from him, head resting on the wood and obviously asleep. A similar blanket was draped over her, brown and full of holes.

"Oh, you're awake!" the Nord behind the counter said, startling his guest. "Considered moving you to a bed, but I couldn't lift you with all that armour on you. Lucky she got you here, I reckon. Snowed all last night." He picked something from his teeth with a grotty fingernail, and slipped towards them.

"She got me here?" Talking hurt, but so did breathing through his nose and mouth.

"You went out like a snuffed candle almost as soon as she got you in that chair. Dunno quite how she shifted you down from Bleak Falls, but you staggered in here on your own two feet." He had a concerned look on his face. "What was up there did the damage to your face, can I ask?" Reaching up, he brushed a scruffy braid from his eyes and stuffed the lock of brown hair behind his ear.

Jonna strained to remember, but all that gained him was a headache. "There were bandits up there… Dead things too… I don't recall what…" He touched his upper lip again, drawing a grimace. It felt like he'd smashed his face on a wall, but all his memories were lost in a haze of semi-consciousness. "How's she?" He nodded to the girl.

"Tired. Busted ankle. Same way she was when she left, 'cept she's limping worse. Fell right asleep almost soon as she sat. Want some stew?" He stirred a large black pot over the embers, and behind the overwhelming stench of blood the Redguard could catch an aroma that turned his stomach. He shook his head, feeling queasy. The Nord was unfazed. "Ah, I don't blame you. I ain't the best chef in Skyrim, I'll tell you that. Ain't the Gourmet, or whatever that bloke calls himself, that's for sure. Run out of bread, but I got some apples. Maybe some ale?"

The thought of trying to stretch his lips around an apple sent a fresh wave of pain and accompanying nausea through Jonna. "You said it snowed. Is it safe to go out?"

"Don't you go leaving this girl alone," the Nord said sternly. "You'd be more'n dead if she'd left you up there." When he folded his arms the definition of his muscles was visible even through the layers of cloth.

"I only wanted to get some air," Jonna muttered. In honesty, he wanted nothing to do with the Breton. He seemed to spend his time around her either avoiding dying or saving her life. He pushed himself to his feet, staggered and sat back down abruptly. "Or not…" he groaned in irritation with himself.

"She said she was gonna get you to Whiterun, get your lip seen to by a real physician. Delphine said she'd get more healing potions in the city, but until then we ain't got nothing to heal you up here."

The Redguard had a nasty feeling they'd used up the others healing the girl's ankle up after part of Helgen fell on it. He peered at her sleeping form, debating whether or not to wake her and get moving. He might have made it to Whiterun by himself, but it would take him far longer than he wanted to spend travelling to do it alone.

His fingers clenched into a fist and thumped his side of the table. The girl sat up abruptly, disorientated. Lines of wood grain had made little indents in the side of her face, and her auburn hair had flopped over her eyes. "I see you're awake," she murmured. She sounded more dazed than anything else, and she ran her hand over the top of her head.

Jonna found himself surprised that she had survived Bleak Falls Barrow. She was still dressed in the tattered sacking that the Legion had bestowed upon their prisoners after being captured in the raid on Falkreath, and he seemed to recall she knew little to no magic. Propped up against her chair the woodcutter's axe could barely even gleam in the firelight, unstained with blood. His own weapon was… He almost flew into a panic when he finally realised it was not on his back, but then his eyes found his scabbard leaning against the wall not far from his chair. His armour was partially loosened due to the dents that would have constricted his breathing, though he had a vague recollection of doing that on his own.

The girl fumbled with the sleeve of her shirt before ripping off a strip of it and tying back her hair in a rough ponytail. She straightened, her fingers closing around the slightly bent golden claw. "I'll be back." She walked through the door of the inn, her limp particularly pronounced.

When she returned she was carrying a small bag of coin and looked decidedly unimpressed.

"Less than you expected?" the Redguard asked mockingly. He could remember her obsessing about the stupid thing all the way through Bleak Falls Barrow as though it was her only way to get anywhere in life.

"You're the one who crushed it," she grumbled, pressing a pile of coins firmly onto the counter. "It's not much, Orgnar," she explained. "But it should cover food and stuff."

"My pleasure," the Nord grunted in reply. "Maybe you'll see Delphine in Whiterun."

The girl shrugged and limped to where Jonna was sat. "Can you stand?" she asked tersely, stowing the rest of her coinpurse away.

"Vaguely." This time when he pushed himself upright he made a point of leaning on the table for support, staying on his feet long enough for the innkeeper to catch him under the arm. "My sword…"

The Breton collected it and hung the scabbard around his shoulders loosely, before picking up her own axe. "At least I don't leave you in the snow to die." She slid under his unbound arm and Orgnar moved away so that she was holding him up.

It had not snowed as much as Jonna had been led to believe, but still a thin white blanket covered the ground, pockmarked with footprints. The rhythmic ringing of the blacksmith hammering his trade filled the village, intertwined with the coarse sounds of logs being split at the sawmill.

"How far is Whiterun?"

"Have you never been?" She shook her head. Jonna peered at the sky for an indication of what time of day it might be, but all he saw was a mishmash of grey clouds. "At this speed? A few hours." His legs were less shaky now, but his head was still spinning and pounding. "What will you do there?" he asked her. He noticed now that her feet were covered in little more than soaked strips of cloth, and he wondered how long she could trudge about in the snow like that before she lost her limbs to the cold.

"What does it matter to you? You left me in the snow to die anyway."

"I didn't leave you to die!" the Redguard snapped. If she hadn't been the only thing between him and a face full of frozen water, he would have walked off. "I sent people out looking for you!"

"Yes, right after you left me in the snow to die. I could have left you in Bleak Falls, but you'd be short of an arm right now."

He peered at the makeshift bandages surrounding his right arm. It didn't feel painful. It didn't feel much of anything besides stiff, numb and frozen. "What are you talking about?"

"You got cut with some enchanted blade. Wouldn't be surprised if it's blue by now." The nonchalance of her tone was almost enough to make him wince. Now that he was thinking about it, stabs of icy agony washed through his arm and into his shoulder to mingle with the pain of his mutilated upper lip.

"Do you expect me to fall on my knees and thank you for it?"

"I suspect you'd sooner fall in the river if I let you go." It was probably true. The White River ran swiftly beneath the bridge out of Riverwood, the rough cobbles unspotted with footprints.

"I'm not an invalid," he muttered indignantly. The sound he made was carried away by the rushing water, a fact for which he was thankful. At present he doubted he could reach Whiterun alone, and yet he would wind up far worse for not going.

At their slow pace the hours melted away. Jonna had made the journey between Whiterun and Riverwood twice before and yet this trip seemed to drag on indefinitely. Wolves howled in the distance and the Redguard wondered just what the pair would do if they were to be ambushed by a pack. From what he had seen of the Breton girl she could not fight or cast spells, and neither of them were in any fit state to run. His own blade was not something that he could wield with one of his arms damaged.

The clouds grew darker as they were able to pick out the walls of the city between the twisted snow-covered trees. The river itself curved abruptly, changing the course of the road that ran alongside it and openly up a large, flat area of land behind which the city sat on a small hill. Even from here Dragonsreach was obvious above the high walls. Imposing and majestic, the Jarl's hall was lit by a series of large fires that had not been burning the last time Jonna had been in the city. The path branched at a point where the White River was narrow enough to build a bridge, and the pair took the left road onto the plain. If the waters rose high enough, this area would surely flood.

Last time he had been here, the Redguard had not paid any mind to the large buildings of the Honningbrew Meadery with its ornately carved wooden gables in the shape of grinning dragons. Nor had he noticed the farmhouses with their crops sprawled out before them down towards the small stream that licked at the walls of Whiterun.

A few guards wandered the roads with torches, but they saw no other people until they reached the stables.

"It ain't safe to be out so late," a Nord voice said from inside. He opened the door to the stable block and slipped outside accompanied by the scent of manure and damp hay. "Hear tales of werewolves round here." He secured the door and leant on it. In the gloom it was hard to make out much of his appearance, but Jonna couldn't help noticing the sharp axe stuck through his belt.

"We never intended to be out after dark," the girl snapped. They had stopped upon hearing the voice and her knees were quaking with the effort of holding them both upright.

The ostler noticed. "Need help?" he asked kindly.

Reluctantly, the Redguard opened his mouth to accept. However, before he got the chance to do so the Breton was attempting to continue walking. Without his compliance she stumbled and slipped from under his arm, leaving him wobbling in the struggle to remain standing alone.

The Nord caught both of them. "You two are in a bad way."

"We need to get to a physician," Jonna said before the girl had a chance to limp away.

"Dunno if you'd find one of them here. Reckon maybe you should see the court wizard, but Arcadia could brew you some potions to take the edge off."

"Could you help me to Farengar?" The words tasted like ashes in his mouth, but he would never be able to climb the steps to Dragonsreach alone. "I have business with him." Thankfully he could still feel the Dragonstone pressed against his skin beneath his dented armour, though he dreaded having to return to that Imperial woman for repairs.

"Aye. And what about you, gal? Same place?"

She pressed her lips together, hovering on her good foot. The Nord man had his arm about her waist to prevent her from falling, but Jonna could see that she was debating attempting to make the journey alone.

"Lot of stairs up t't' Cloud District."

She closed her eyes and nodded. There was a weary look about her now, and the stark firelight for the lamp outside the stables made her pale skin ghostly. She was thin, too thin, and wispy strands of hair had escaped the makeshift band.

"Here you go, gal." The Nord shifted his hold on her so that practically her entire weight rested in his arms. She was small enough to be carried but he still allowed her to walk alone. He allowed Jonna to lean on his other shoulder for support. "Name's Skulvar," he said. "If you ever need a horse, I've got some of the best you'll find in Skyrim."

"I'll bear that in mind," the Breton snapped, though the tone of her voice said that she wouldn't.

The Redguard had never seen the guard towers outside of Whiterun with more than a handful of soldiers in them and this evening was no exception. They had lit a series of torches to try and brighten up the last stretch of path towards the city gates, but the light had little effect save to throw long eerie shadows over the road ahead. The trio moved faster than they had as just a pair, but not by much. Jonna could feel his legs growing stronger, but still his head pounded and ached with the beginnings of exhaustion following a long, slow walk. His lip was now a familiar agony and his arm was so numb that he could barely coax movement from his fingers.

"You two don't look like the typical adventurers we get through here," Skulvar was saying. "I've seen hundreds of 'em come through. All polished and gleaming 'til they spend a week with the Companions. Not many stick around. Most die. Just last week a little Wood Elf girl come out of there all fresh-faced and smiling at my son Jervar, then next thing we hear she's in the mud smashed up by a giant what thought she got too close to its mammoth. Cruel, really."

They passed in front of Jorrvaskr, and though the Redguard listened for the sounds of them training he could hear nothing. The Breton, he saw, was staring at the shrivelled tree in the middle of the path. Though it had plenty of water from the little streams running down from Dragonsreach, the tree seemed to be blackened and dead. She did not ask about it, and Skulvar was too busy babbling about dead Companions to pay her any mind.

The stairs up to Dragonsreach were a challenge that slowed them down still further, each one an act of precise coordination. When they eventually reached the top the clouds had cleared and Masser and Secunda were visible in the dark sky among the stars.

"We can make it from here," Jonna told Skulvar.

"Aye," the Nord nodded. "Remember me should you ever need a horse." He watched them through the enormous doors before presumably departing.

"Isn't it a little late to be seeking a healer?" the girl hissed as the doors creaked shut.

"Farengar is expecting me. He'll get out of bed."

"That stone?"

"I retrieved what I was sent for. No questions asked."

"Well, aren't you the perfect little hired sword…"

The main hall was lit by a mass of candles that must have taken the servants several hours to light. As they struggled towards the rooms of the wizard, hushed voices became apparent. Behind the desk stood Farengar Secret-Fire and another person about whom the only thing Jonna could make out was the fact that they were a woman dressed in brown armour with a hood to conceal their identity. More books were strewn about than there had been the last time the Redguard was in this room, either open or with various bits and pieces wedged between their pages to keep note of them.

Jonna cleared his throat and Farengar looked up in surprise, the woman's hand reaching for the sword she wore at her hip.

"Ah, it's you," the wizard said in sudden recognition. He narrowed his eyes when he saw the girl. "Who is this woman?"

"This is…" he frowned. He had forgotten her name.

"Élusia Gaerwood," she snapped, sliding out from under his arm to leave him leant against the wall. "We were together at Helgen." She left out the '_unfortunately_' that he could hear in her voice.

"Ah. Do you have it?"

Jonna tried to reach under his armour with his bandaged arm before realising his mistake and swapping. The Dragonstone was warm to the touch from having been pressed against his skin for so long, and he held it out. "I'm afraid I can't bring it to you. I would have been here sooner; however I was wounded in acquiring it. You quite failed to mention the barrow was crawling with undead warriors."

The reply was cutting. "My mistake." He crossed the chamber, his blue robes rustling as he moved. "This will be most helpful to my research. The Jarl will provide you with a reward in the morning."

"We were told you could heal us."

"Do I look like a physician?"

"No, you look like a mage," Élusia retorted before the Redguard had the chance. "And I can't help but notice you have alchemy equipment over there." She pointed across the room, dragging herself to Farengar's desk and leaning on it heavily. She peered at the other woman, who turned away instinctively to hide her identity.

The court wizard frowned. "If you want to find an expert in _restoration_ magic, I suggest you travel to Winterhold College and find one there. One would think you could go and buy a healing potion like other 'great warriors'. I work with the elements, not screaming patients. Go and see the sisters in the temple if you must…"

"These markings…" The injured woman was reading a book on the desk upside down. "I saw them in Bleak Falls Barrow."

Farengar's interest in them seemed to suddenly pique. "Do you know what they say? Can you read them? What do you know?"

"Little," she admitted. "But there was a whole wall carved with them, and that stone is no different. When I was there, some of the markings seemed to…" She searched for the right word. "Call to me. They seemed to pull me towards them. I couldn't read it; I didn't know what it said, but… A word seemed to leap out at me, not even one I understand in Tamrielic…"

"You have no training in the art of Thu'um?" The other woman spoke for the first time. Her accent was that of Skyrim, but it was clear from her build that she was no Nord.

"Delphine…" Élusia muttered with an air of recognition, though Jonna was convinced he did not know the second woman at all.

"Answer the question."

"Since I do not know what you speak of, I can only assume that I have no training in it."

Farengar and Delphine exchanged looks. The mage continued, "And you were there in Helgen when the dragons supposedly reappeared?" A nod from Élusia. The woman scrambled for a book, and pointed to a page that the Nord read aloud, "'The World-Eater wakes, and the Wheel turns upon the Last Dragonborn.' Oh dear."

The Redguard staggered across the room, landing heavily on the wizard's desk. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Delphine looked up abruptly and met his dark eyes with her silver. "There is no way of knowing for sure at this moment. Farengar, heal them. Send the expenses to me if you must. I should be going." She pulled a knapsack from behind the table and began to fill it with a selection of books, including the one from which she had prompted the court-wizard to read. Without a further word to anybody, she swept from the room more swiftly than either Jonna or Élusia would be capable of in their current states.

For a long moment the Nord said nothing, blinking at a blank space. Then he began to move again, quickly and haphazardly. "Healing, yes," he said shortly, moving to a small table at the back of his room that glowed with peculiar arcane elements. "I can brew you up a pair of healing potions. Perhaps they will leave you with scars and aches, but they should allow you to move about sufficiently well under your own steam. The Jarl will want to reward you for your aid in retrieving this stone. It will be most useful to my research."

"On dragons?" The Breton was attempting to read another text lying at the opposite end of the desk without being obvious about it. She was failing.

"One would think that with the sudden reappearance of supposed dragons in Helgen, that would be a topic requiring research."

"'Supposed'? There was nothing supposed about that dragon! Have you been to Helgen?"

"Reports have also come of bandits in the area."

"Bandits do not level buildings."

Farengar snapped about to face them. "I cannot focus on precise alchemical measurements if you are to sit here making idle comments. I suggest you find an inn in the city and return in the morning."

"You can't expect us to-!"

Jonna captured the girl's wrist. "We'll leave you to it," he said to her more than the wizard in a tone that left no room for argument.

She narrowed her eyes but complied begrudgingly. "What are you doing?" she hissed when they were only a few steps from the door.

"They don't know yet. We won't get any potions if you stand there asking a million questions."

"Well what do you suggest, genius?" Her tone was condescending and sarcastic. "We won't make it down those stairs again. We barely made it up."

"We wait… Besides, you don't want to get pulled into that ridiculous dragon business. They probably just want to use dragons as a weapon against somebody or other. You saw that black one in Helgen! We might be the only people who made it out of there, for all we know."

"Hardly."

"Just don't be an imbecile. You're free to leave as soon as we're healed."

"And go where? I can't leave this damned province for all the fighting."

"Wherever you bloody well want to go." Jonna lowered himself to the ground, leaning against the wall. "You're not my problem. Go tell yourself you know magic, or whatever it was you were doing before Helgen. Go join the bloody Imperial Legion if you really want to." The thought made his fingers curl into fists. "Just don't expect you'll be living long if you do."

"What is your problem with Imperials?" She was still stood, arms folded over the filthy torn shirt, weight on her one good ankle.

Anger bristled within him. "You should take care to learn when questions are best left unasked."

Hopefully the moment they were healed a dragon would swoop down and eat her.

* * *

_Author Note: So yeah, this took three months again. I had exams, but mostly I had writers' block. There's no excuse really, so I can only apologise. Let me know what you think of my new character!_


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